Police upset over pay reform
POLICE officers are said to be “bitterly disappointed” after pay reforms were passed that will cut their wage packets by up to £4,000 a year.
Home Secretary Theresa May has clashed with officers since Tom Winsor’s review recommended the biggest reform of police pay in 30 years.
Mr Winsor said more than £1bn of savings should be made, with most of this being redistributed from officers with comfortable back office jobs to those on the front line.
The review’s proposals would leave at least 40 per cent of officers worse off, with the biggest losers having their take-home pay slashed by up to £4,000 a year.
But negotiators were sent to the Police Arbitration Tribunal (Pat) after failing to agree a deal.
The tribunal accepted most of what the review had put forward and Mrs May accepted the Pat proposals yesterday.
Steve Matthews, chairman of the Cleveland Police Federation, said: “There’s a recognition across the force that we have been badly treated.
“For a Home Secretary who said she will protect us, it’s a strange way to show it.
“It seems disproportionate and is being hidden by the word ‘reform’, when really it is just cuts. Officers are bitterly disappointed with what is happening.”
The tribunal did change several of the Winsor proposals including saying that the competence-related threshold payments - often described by critics as “grab a grand” - should remain in place for those who already receive them.
In a speech on police reform in central London, Mrs May said: “Policing will remain a well-paid job.
“And the fact remains that, if we hadn’t taken this tough decision, we would have had to cut police budgets more deeply and there would have had to be more police job cuts.
“That is something that neither the police nor the public wants.
“Once the Pat’s recommendations have been fully implemented, they will save around £150 million per year.”
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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