POLICE officers deserve a 5% pay at the very least to make up for a decade of below-inflation increases, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.<\/p>\n
According to its submission to the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB), the Home Office recent funding settlement provides funding for a pay uplift of \u2018at least 2%\u2019 in the 2022\/23 financial year.<\/p>\n
But Steve Kent, South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair, said that figure doesn\u2019t get anywhere near the amount of money officers have lost after years of pay freezes.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cPolice officers have been neglected during Covid while a lot of other public services haven\u2019t, even though we\u2019ve been at the front line of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re at a 20% loss in terms of pay when we look at what\u2019s happened over the last ten years. So this is part of a much, much bigger picture.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice pay is lagging and has been lagging there for some time, and our officers now are so much more financially worse off than what they were even 10 years ago compared to the cost of living. It\u2019s absolutely vital that we get an initial, at the very least, sharp increase in pay so that officers can at least redress the balance.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy view is it has to be an absolute minimum of 5%. Ideally we would like more than that but that\u2019s what we need to be looking at. And that\u2019s not acceptable when the Home Office are suggesting 2%. Well that\u2019s not enough and officers are struggling financially.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers are struggling with the increasing costs of living. All they will be doing with this pay rise is just buying the necessities. We\u2019ve really got to start going forward now and repairing the damage to police officers\u2019 pay, which has been pretty much stagnant now for 12 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Police Federation of England and Wales has branded the PRRB\u2019s proposal as \u2018disgusting\u2019.<\/p>\n
National PFEW Vice-Chair, Ch\u00e9 Donald, said: \u201cGiven that police officer pay has fallen by 20% in real terms since 2010, I can only assume the Home Office recommendation of a two per cent pay award to the Police Remuneration Review Body contains a typo and missed out the much needed zero after the two to make 20.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything else is not just grossly unfair, it is disgusting and shows just how little this Government really values police officers.\u201d<\/p>\n