POLICE PAY SNUB WAS ‘PUNCH ON NOSE’
Britain’s top cop blasts Government
BRITAIN’S top police officer yesterday attacked ministers for refusing to back a chronically over-stretched service and giving it a “punch on the nose”. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick, left, said the Government’s failure to
increase police pay by three per cent had damanged morale and could hinder efforts to hire and retain staff.
Ms Dick branded the decision to impose a two per cent rise and ignore the independent Pay Review Body’s recommendation of three per cent as a “punch on the nose”.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid yesterday admitted police forces were not receiving enough cash, despite increases over the past three years.
Ms Dick told the Police Superintendents’ Association Annual Conference in Leicester: “This is the second year in a row the Government has rejected the Pay Review Body’s recommendations in favour of a lower award.
“I think this is wrong in principle, because it leaves the PRB process in tatters, and undermines the careful balance that protects officers’ rights, and wrong in practice.
“In my view, and I appreciate I don’t see the whole view, it flies in the face of evidence and rational argument. And wrong because, although I accept that any final decision is one for the Government, it hasn’t been explained very well yet and we have heard no proposal about how to rebuild confidence.
“I am sorry to say I do think that decision will have affected morale. I don’t want the Government to wait until we are struggling like the prison service with chronic understaffing.”
The Commissioner added: “I need to think, how can I recruit and how can I retain and how can I make my officers and staff feel that I really value them? Because I feel this is a punch on the nose.”
The senior officer said the Met provided evidence for why officers should receive a three per cent increase.
She added: “It is a matter of principle that officers must have confidence in an independent body deciding on their pay.
“It is worth looking at the rhetoric when the Pay Review Body was set up.
“Officers cannot strike and that is quite right, but it is unlike other front line workers, and that in my view puts an obligation on the Government to respect the carefully developed argument and recommendations of the Pay Review Body.”
Police officer numbers have fallen to 122,204 – down 21,000 from 143,734 since 2010.
Meanwhile, the number of police support staff has also fallen by almost 17,000 in eight years to 62,820. Detectives are facing rising numbers of “complex” and expensive investigations into cases involving terrorism, cyber-crime and child sexual exploitation.
A scathing report by the National Audit Office highlighted how forces were struggling to cope with additional demands, with the average time it takes to charge a suspect rising from 14 days in 2016 to 18 in the year to March.
Arrest rates have also fallen to 14 per 1,000 population, down from 17 in 2014-15. Shadow policing minister Louise Haigh said of Ms Dick’s comments: “The Government’s universally unpopular pay offer to the police is being met with the contempt it deserves.
“This below-inflation pay deal will continue to eat away at the living standards of our brave police officers, and will inevitably lead to job losses. When
‘This pay offer is being met with contempt’
ministers praise our chronically overstretched police officers and then cut their real-terms pay, is it any wonder many of them are leaving the service in droves?”
But Mr Javid defended the Government’s handling of the pay review.
He told the conference: “I took it seriously but what I have to do at the same time when it comes to pay recommendations though – you’ll know that pay recommendations across the board for millions of public sector workers, we have to as a Government take them all into account – you’re trying to get that balance between affordability, what is recommended and fairness to tax payers. I recognise that there is a need for more resources.”
A“PUNCH on the nose.” The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police certainly wasn’t pulling any punches herself in her anger at the Government’s refusal to accept the recommendation to increase police pay and Cressida Dick certainly has a point. As Tim Newark argues on this page, for years the police have been expected to cope with growing and ever more successful criminal ploys while being starved of the resources to do so. We have fewer police these days under increased pressure to perform.
It is time to accept we can’t have it both ways. Either we have a fully functioning police force, which we pay for, or we do not. We cannot expect the police to work miracles and the very least we can do is to compensate them properly. It’s a pretty thankless task being a police officer these days, endlessly criticised for the rise in crime, the nature of the crime and the inability to deal with the crime.
Perhaps if we increased the funds in police coffers it might help.
Cressida Dick is a hugely respected figure and she should be listened to. The Home Secretary Sajid Javid at least appears to be doing so, vowing to fight the Treasury to gain more money for bonus payments for the police.
But as we point out on this page, the Home Office must rethink its entire attitude to policing. Matters as they are cannot go on.