Police Remuneration

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

The tenth report of the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB) was published today. The body considered the pay and allowances for police officers up to and including the chief superintending ranks in England and Wales. The 46th report of Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) was also published and made recommendations on the pay and allowances for the chief police officer ranks in England and Wales. I am grateful to the chairs and members for their reports and recommendations.

This Government value the vital contribution of police officers across the country who work tirelessly to keep us safe every single day.

Both the PRRB and SSRB recommended a consolidated increase of 4.75% to all police officer ranks and pay points with effect from 1 September 2024. The Government are accepting the recommendation in full. The Home Office will provide £175 million additional funding in 2024-25 to forces to help with the cost of the pay increase.

While the recommendation for a consolidated award of 4.75% is significantly above what had been budgeted for in the 2021 spending review, it is right that we accept it in full. Police officers have a crucial role to play in delivering the Government’s manifesto commitments to make Britain’s streets safe and increase public visibility through neighbourhood policing.

The PRRB also recommended that London weighting should increase by 4.75%; that the on-call allowance should be increased from £20 to £25; and that the dog handlers’ allowance should be uprated by 4.75% and the additional rate for officers with more than one dog be raised from 25% to 50% of the rate for the first dog. The SSRB recommended that the power of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) to vary a chief constable’s starting pay should be withdrawn. The Government are accepting these recommendations in full and they will take effect on 1 September 2024.

The PRRB recommended that the chief officer of police in each force should be given the discretion to set the starting salary for new constables at either pay point 1 or pay point 2 on the constables’ pay scale. This recommendation has been accepted, but implementation will be subject to detailed proposals from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) on the circumstances in which this discretion should be used, along with transition arrangements for those constables on pay point 1, to inform amendments to the Police Regulations 2003.

The PRRB also recommended the commissioners of the Metropolitan Police Service and City of London police be given further discretion to set the starting salaries of new constables at pay point 3 on the constables’ pay scale; and that this additional flexibility should be limited to a period of two years and be reviewed after one year. This recommendation has not been accepted. Instead, London allowance for officers appointed on or after 1 September 1994 will be increased by £1,250. Implementation of this increase will be synchronised alongside the wider changes to constable starting salaries.

The PRRB considered annual leave entitlements for officers in the federated ranks and recommended the time it takes to reach the maximum entitlement of 30 days should be reduced from 20 to 10 years, with effect from 1 April 2025 and phased in over three years. This recommendation has been accepted, subject to the submission of a satisfactory equality impact assessment by the NPCC to the Home Office. The PRRB further recommended that from September 2024, annual leave entitlement for new entrants should be increased from 22 to 25 days. This recommendation has been accepted but with implementation taking effect on 1 April 2025.

The Government welcome the PRRB’s recommendations that the Home Office, NPCC and APCC work together to undertake a comprehensive review of police remuneration, in order to produce a costed plan in preparation for the next spending review; and that as part of this, allowances in the NPCC’s schedule for review should be reviewed in their entirety in 2024-25. These recommendations will be subject to further discussions but must be aligned to a police workforce strategy.

[HCWS36]