Pay award is “insulting and disapppointing”

THIS year’s pay award for police officers is both insulting and disappointing, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

Zuleika Payne said she received the news with “despair” that officers would receive a 1% pay rise – which she said was “in real terms, yet another cut”.

The 1% bonus – to be paid by chief constables – added insult to injury as finding the money to pay it will hit officers in other ways, she said.

Zuleika said: “It is really insulting when you consider some of the major incidents that police officers have had to contend with this year. We’ve had the Westminster attack, the Manchester Arena attack, the London Bridge attack, all against a backdrop of a raised security threat level as well.

“Police officers have worked in unprecedented times, and one would have hoped that that would have served as an illustration as to why officers are so deserving of so much more. To receive this news came as a real kick in the teeth, and I suppose we could be forgiven for perhaps sensing that all this good work and has almost gone unnoticed.”

Ms Payne said officers were run ragged and being pulled from pillar to post dealing with unprecedented levels of demand against a backdrop of drastic cuts to funding.

She added: “Officers are working in drastically reduced teams. They are over worked and exhausted but despite all of this, having to maintain service delivery. It was disappointing to hear there was to be a delay in the pay announcement, then, when it finally came, there was only further disappointment.

In the recent PFEW Pay and Morale survey, 92% of South Yorkshire Police officers said they didn’t feel fairly paid given the stresses and strains of their job.

Ms Payne added: “Our members feel incredibly under-valued. Whenever we’ve had major incidents, there’s been a lot of praise and politicians have been very quick to articulate that. I can’t help but feel that actions speak louder than word, to this end the Government could have done a lot more to show their appreciation.

“One has to question how sincere those words really were at the time about what an amazing job police officers do. They’re there to protect, they’re there for the health, benefit and welfare of society, but when stick came to lift, the Government couldn’t honour us with a respectable pay increment.”