“Ridiculous” delay in agreeing G8 police pay package

THE DELAY in a pay agreement for officers deployed to the G8 Summit has been branded as “ridiculous” by South Yorkshire Police Federation’s chairman.

Neil Bowles said officers from his force were deploying to Northern Ireland without being told what they would be paid. The National Federation has since confirmed that its members who deployed will be paid “in accordance with the existing regulations and determinations”.

“It was a ridiculous state of affairs,” he said.

“A number of officers from South Yorkshire had already deployed for G8 and dozens more subsequently went over. Yet we still didn’t know what remuneration they would get for the hours they worked or for the hours for which they were restricted,” he said.

Overall, some 3,500 officers from England, Wales and Scotland converged for G8 as part of the 7,000-strong team delivering the largest policing operation in the history of Northern Ireland.

The Police Federation of England and Wales said that under Police Regulations, constables and sergeants will be paid for all hours worked. Overtime will be paid at a rate of time and a third and all travel should be counted as duty time.

A £50 “Away from Home Overnight Allowance” will be paid to all federated officers for each night they were away.  Officers will receive a further payment of £30 per night if “proper accommodation” was not provided, which is anything less than a single occupancy room with use of en-suite bathroom facilities.

Officers not in receipt of a fixed rate who are required to perform duty between the hours of 8.00pm and 6.00am should receive the unsocial hours allowance paid at an hourly rate of 10 per cent of the officer’s hourly pay. Officers who volunteered to be on-call while not on duty should also receive an allowance of £15 for each daily occasion of on-call.

Inspectors are still waiting to find out if they will receive an additional discretionary payment.

A PFEW spokesman said: “PFEW has yet to be formally notified of the additional payment for the inspecting ranks. However, details of an additional payment were included within a letter from ACC Alistair Finley to CC Ian Learmonth, the ACPO lead. Therefore we would expect forces to make the payment.”

It is understood that the Home Office would not agree to the package the Federation had put forward in negotiations leading up to the summit. PFEW has previously said it shared the disappointment of officers that the package had not been confirmed earlier.

Officers deployed to G8 were praised for their “fantastic job” by the Secretary of State on Security. Theresa Villiers said: “We can now look back at one of the smoothest and safest G8 Summits in memory. But the lack of any serious public order incidents did not happen by chance – it’s a real credit to the excellent preparations put in place by the PSNI and its partners, who have done a fantastic job in ensuring the Summit was secure and peaceful.”