It is wrong that officers are struggling financially

IT CAN never be right that police officers are paid so little that they struggle to make ends meet.

Zuleika Payne, Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation, has joined calls for the Government to end the 1% public sector pay cap, and award officers the 2.8% pay rise recommended by the Police Federation of England and Wales.

She said: “What we have to bear in mind is that in real terms, over the last six years, our salaries have fallen by 14.8%. So police officers are finding it more and more difficult to maintain some sort of reasonable standard of living because of the real terms drop in our salaries.

“Now, coupled with that, police officers are in the unfortunate position that it’s very difficult sometimes to secure an agreement where you can take on additional employment outside of the service if they need to supplement their income.

“Times are hard for our officers and what adds further aggravation to that is the fact that to fail to discharge a lawful debt is also a discipline offense.

“So on the one hand we’ve had to suffer what has effectively been a drop in pay, but at the same time we’re struggling to try and make ends meet.”

“During our national conference in Birmingham this year there were examples up and down the country of police officers having to visit food banks.

“It can never be right that someone who is there to uphold the law, to serve and protect and puts themselves in harm’s way, is finding themselves struggling to make ends meet.

“We’ve made polite, proportionate, reasonable requests for consideration of a pay rise of 2.8%, and I don’t see how anybody could argue that that is unreasonable.

“And when you consider what the MPs have been awarded, and they’ve seen that to be appropriate and proportionate, it really aggravates me as a Chair to think that my membership suffer when politicians benefit from huge pay increases.”