Trade union side and conditions claim for 2021

• The pay and allowances of police staff in England and Wales have risen by only 12.2 per cent over the nine years since 2011
• If pay and allowances had risen by the cost of living (RPI measure), they would be 27.6 per cent higher today than they were in 2011
• Government cost cutting in the police service has slashed the value of police staff pay to a level where it is no longer competitive. Police staff are finding it hard, if not impossible, to manage on their current salaries
• The latest retail prices index (RPI) measure of inflation stood at 1.5 per cent in March 2021 and is projected to average 2.4 per cent over the rest of 2021.

Table 1 below shows the major fall in living standards suffered by police staff since 2011:

Table 1

While the value of total police staff pay rises over the last ten years has been 12.2 per cent, the cost of living has risen by 27.6 per cent.

These statistics open the PSC Trade Union Side’s pay claim for police staff members for 2021. If there was ever a time for the Employers to demonstrate that they really value police staff, now, after more than 12 months of our members working through the COVID-19 pandemic, is an opportune time to show it.

As we noted in our last three pay claims, the wider question of how police staff basic pay is determined, including the role of job evaluation and force pay grading schemes, is the subject of Part 2 of the Police Staff Council Pay and Reward Review which is currently underway. The Trade Union Side is disappointed that the Employers have not been able to engage in without prejudice talks about significant pay reform for police staff in England and Wales. Police staff are acutely aware that the Employers are engaged elsewhere in a programme which aims to reform the way in which police officers are rewarded. This wider question frames our pay claim for a fourth year running.

This claim is split into the following sections:

• Executive summary
• Police staff pay determination factors
  • Pay movements elsewhere in the public sector/elsewhere in the economy
  • Movements in the Retail Prices Index
  •  Police service funding
• Mixed percentage/flat rate claim
• A variable increase in the value of pay points 8 – 18
• A review of police staff leave entitlement
• PSC pay and reward review part two
• Conclusion.

3.1 Headline claim

The Police Staff Council Trade Union Side submits the following pay claim on behalf of our police staff members in England and Wales to take effect from 1 September 2021:

• One-year claim
• A guarantee that pay point 7 will not fall below the Joseph Rowntree real living wage during the 2021/22 pay year
• A variable increase in the value of pay points 8 – 18 to make each incremental step worth £500 to create more equal steps up the lower pay points of the PSC pay spine
• A three per cent, or £1,000, increase, whichever is the greater, on all PSC pay points, to take effect on top of the variable increase in the value of pay points 8-18.
• A three per cent increase on standby allowance and overnight away from home allowance
• A joint review of police force leave arrangements.

Tables are attached at Appendices A and B setting out the impact of this claim on the existing PSC pay spine. Appendix A shows the impact of the proposed changes to pay points 8 – 18. Appendix B shows the effect of a 3 per cent, or £1,000, pay increase on all pay points.

3.2   PSC pay determination factors

The Police Staff Council Handbook sets out the following five factors to which the negotiators must have regard when negotiating PSC pay awards. They do not constitute a rigid formula, but they are significant reference points for any pay claim, and for the pay negotiations which will follow.

The current values attaching to the factors, at the time of submitting this claim, are:

• pay movements elsewhere in the public sector: 2.7 per cent
• pay movements elsewhere in the economy: 2.3 per cent
• movements in the retail prices index (RPI): 1.5 per cent
  
  (March 2021)
• recruitment and retention factors: no measure
• police service funding: 5.4 per cent.

Police staff take a keen interest in comparator pay awards across the whole economy considering the continuing pressure on the value of their salaries due to the sharp rise in the retail prices index of inflation since the start of 2017. The Trade Union Side wishes to emphasize the need for the eventual pay award this year to recognise the substantial increases in inflation since 2017, and the detrimental impact that this has had on our members’ spending power.

The need to address the loss of the historic buying power of police staff salaries will not go away; nor have our members forgotten the severe impact that government austerity measures have had on their standard of living. For some parties this may be an inconvenient truth, but it is not one which the Trade Union Side is prepared to ignore.

The rise in inflation is accompanied this year by the fourth year of real increase in police funding, with total funding for the service rising by 5.4 per cent for 2021/22.

At the time of writing, the Police Staff Council has no measure available in respect of recruitment and retention issues in forces in England and Wales.

3.3 Explanation of claim

• We seek a guarantee as part of the 2021 pay award that PSC pay point 7 will not fall below the Joseph Rowntree real living wage during the 2021/22 pay year. As the real living wage is not announced until November each year, there is a danger that this rate could leapfrog the value of PSC pay point 7 set earlier in September
• The impact of the £702 increase in the value of pay point 7 as part of the 2020 pay award, and the effect of historical percentage rises on the value of PSC pay points, has squeezed differentials and depressed the relative value of pay points 8 -18 over recent years. We seek to address this by adjusting the values of PSC pay points 8 -18 and by means of a mixed percentage/flat rate award. 
• The claim for a headline increase in all PSC pay points of 3 per cent, or £1,000, whichever is the greater, is justified in relation to the current values of the PSC pay determination factors, and the need for police staff salaries to close the inflation gap which has opened up over the last 10 years. Police staff salaries are down 15.4 per cent on what they would have been today, had they kept up with inflation. Our members are not prepared to continue paying the price for failed government austerity measures.
• The 3 per cent, or £1,000, increase is also justified on the basis that police staff as key workers during the covid19 pandemic are entitled to see some financial reward for going above and beyond in their service to local communities. On 30 November 2020 the Home Secretary wrote to all police officers and police staff to thank them for the work in response to the pandemic. Here is a short extract from her letter:

‘I want to pay a special tribute to police staff, whose tireless work behind the scenes is just as important.

I understand how hard it has been to work from home for long stretches. Now we have entered a second lockdown, the novelty has worn thin, and the isolation from friends and colleagues can be particularly challenging.

Many of you, though, have continued to travel into work to keep our country safe.

Control room staff in particular have been the unsung heroes of this crisis. The pressure on them has been absolutely huge, deploying vital resources to urgent and competing demands. Thank you for everything you do.’

If the Employers, including the Home Office representing the Home Secretary on the PSC, really value the work of police staff during the pandemic,  2021 is surely the time to provide some tangible proof to our members that they mean what they say. Our members will judge the Employers by their actions in this respect.

• In 2017 the Trade Union Side welcomed the increase in minimum annual leave entitlement from 22 to 23 days as part of the agreement to the 2017 Police Staff Council Handbook. We subsequently sought an additional day on the minimum leave entitlements as part of our 2018 and 2019 claims. Although the Employers Side committed to discuss this element of our last two pay claims as part of the PSC Pay and Reward Review, this commitment has unfortunately not been translated into action.  The Trade Union Side and our members remain acutely aware of the on-going differentials in police staff annual leave entitlement across different forces. So, as part of this claim we ask the Employers to work with us collaboratively to review police staff leave arrangements in the round across all forces in England and Wales.

4.1 Pay movements elsewhere in the public sector and elsewhere in the economy (Year to March 2021)

Pay settlements in the public sector are running at 2.7 per cent. Private sector awards stand at 2.1 per cent. Until 2020 private sector awards had been running far in advance of public sector equivalents since 2010.

While the pay freeze was in place across the public sector (2011-12), the private sector was seeing average rises around 2.5 per cent, and the private sector continued to outpace the public sector by at least double the public sector rate during the ensuing period of the 1 per cent pay cap (2013-17). Since 2018, the gap started closing and during 2020 the public sector overtook the private sector for the first time in a decade.

Table 2 below shows that pay settlements over the last year across the economy have been running at 2.3 per cent.

Table 2

A longer-term perspective, shown in Table 3 below, reflects the huge cumulative impact of police staff pay settlements lagging behind average pay settlements across the economy from 2011 to 2020. Recent PSC pay awards have drawn level with private sector awards, but the cumulative gap in earnings growth since 2011 will not be closed without significant investment.

Table 3

Movements in the Retail Prices Index

As Table 1 above shows, the value of police staff salaries has fallen drastically relative to inflation over the last nine years.

The most accurate indicator of changes in the cost of living facing workers is the Retail Prices Index (RPI). The Police Staff Council pay determination factors recognise this.

Inflation rose markedly over 2016 and 2017, pushing the RPI rate to over 4 per cent. During 2018 and into 2019, rates have since fallen back and the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy has generally been a further decline, though RPI has recently shown a resurgence, reaching 1.5 per cent in March 2021.

Table 4 below shows these trends.

Table 4

4.2.1 RPI inflation rate

The retail prices index of inflation was 1.5 per cent in March 2021.

4.2.2 Inflation forecast

The Treasury average of independent forecasts states that RPI inflation will average 2.4 per cent over 2021. It will then escalate to 2.8 per cent in 2022 and continue to run at around the same mark for the following three years, in line with the pattern shown in graph1 below. These forecasts show the rate at which pay rises would be needed for wages just to maintain their current value.

Graph 1

4.2.3 Relationship between RPI and PSC Pay Awards (2011 – 2020)

Graph 2 below shows the relationship between the PSC pay award and RPI inflation since 2011. RPI inflation is shown in brown, the PSC pay award in blue and the disparity between the two in purple.

The PSC pay award has been lower than RPI inflation for the majority of the period in question.

Graph 2

4.3 Police service funding

One of the PSC pay determination factors is the level of police funding for the coming pay year.

2021/22 is the fourth year of real increase in police funding, as set out in the following extract from the ‘Police Grant Report (England and Wales( 2021/22) House of Commons Library Debate Pack (Number CDP-2021/0018, 5 February 2021)  :

Assuming all Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales maximise their precept income (increasing their precept Band D level by £15) in 2021/22 total direct resource funding, including pensions grant, for England and Wales will increase to just under £13.8 billion in 2021/22 from just under £13.1 billion in 2020/21 - a cash rise of 5.4 per cent:

The Trade Union Side expects this major increase in police funding for this year to be reflected in the eventual police staff pay award for 2021.