PAT result: “Disgraceful, unacceptable and daylight robbery”

POLICE officers joining the job should be paid as little as £19,000 a year, the Police Arbitration Tribunal has announced.

Competency Related Threshold Payments should be phased out said the Arbiters, while all decisions around the issue of police officer compulsory severance were delayed until July next year.

Graham Smith, chairman of Thames Valley Police Federation, said: “It is a disgraceful result.”

It will now be up to the Home Secretary to decide whether she wants to accept their findings. After the tribunal’s decision in January on Winsor 1, she fully accepted the decisions but she took three weeks to do it.

Officers found out on 6 December that as well as a starting salary of £19,000 for new constables, a new 7 point pay increment scale also looks set to be introduced, concluding on £36,519.

Mr Smith said: “The proposed starting salary for officers demeans the Office of Constable… it is below the average wage in this country and that is outrageous.

“The proposal to abolish CRTP is nothing short of daylight robbery – it impacts on officers monthly pay packets and also their pensions.

“There is no good news from these decisions and that is totally and utterly unacceptable.

“The Government needs to treat officers with respect and understand that what we do is unique in society. We feel completely let down by politicians and we look for our local MPs in Thames Valley to speak out about how officers are being treated.”

A national on-call allowance rate of £15 per session will be implemented without the need for qualifying sessions, but the introduction of an Expertise and Professional Accreditation Allowance for officers working in neighbourhood policing, firearms, investigation and public order would earn an extra £50 a month was rejected.

Ian Rennie, general secretary of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “It is important to note that the PAT decision whilst binding on both sides of PNB will require ratification in part, or in whole by the Home Secretary.”

The arbitration is required for Winsor II after a “failure to agree” was registered at the Police Negotiating Board (PNB) in July.