Summary
With over 80% of police force budgets spent on staff pay, making efficiency savings in this sector will be incredibly challenging, as detailed in the 'Independent Review of Police Officer and Staff Remuneration and Conditions’ (Cm. 8024).
Reviewer Tom Winsor must ensure that pay and conditions and the structures around them are optimised given the current state of public finances.
Budget cuts will require forces to heighten services with less funding, but to also maintain a level of fairness for staff and officers. The review will comprise of two parts, covering short and long-term improvements.
The first part of the review focuses on:
- the deployment of officers and staff (including shift allowances, overtime and assisting other police forces);
- post and performance related pay (including special priority payments, competence related threshold payments for constables and bonuses at all ranks); and
- how officers leave the police service.
The independent review calls for an end to the £1,212 competence-related threshold payment, the Special Priority Payment of up to £5,000 and says no officers should move up the pay scale for two years. It also recommends making savings of £60m a year in overtime and suspending chief officer and superintendent bonuses.
Mr Winsor claims recommendations will produce savings of £485m over three years and if implemented, will concentrate the highest pay on the front line and more demanding roles in the police service.
The government is planning to cut its funding for the police by 20% by 2014-15. The 43 forces in England and Wales currently employ about 244,000 people, comprising 143,000 police officers and 101,000 civilians.
Found this story interesting?
Spread the news by
clicking below to add it to your bookmarking service: