22 September 2006
The Treasury wants to cut costs, and police pay is on the hit list. That means officers could be paid less for doing more. And in these dangerous times, the performance ramifications could be very serious indeed, says Jan Berry
What is the best way to judge an organisation's health? For a multinational company, you only have to reach for the latest share price to get a pretty good idea. The public sector might be different, but checking that the books balance must be near the top of the list.
A recent edition of Public Finance must therefore have been deeply worrying reading for anyone with even a passing interest in public safety and security. Indeed, the funding chasm in the police service identified by chief constable Tim Brain as only 20 months' away is already two months closer ('The thinner blue line', July 21–27). To see police numbers plummet so soon after all the major political parties belatedly recognised the importance they play in tackling crime would be a tragedy for all concerned.
However, it is an avoidable tragedy. Chasms can be bridged and avoided. Efficiencies, for instance, can and should be made, particularly in areas such as procurement, where forces have been slow to work together and capitalise on their joint purchasing power.
This issue strikes at the very heart of that most telling of economic conundrums: 'infinite wants, finite resources'. All public services want more cash and the police service is no different. But those holding the purse strings must be under no illusions. Slash police numbers or cut police funding elsewhere, and the service's ability to combat everything from antisocial behaviour to terrorism will be severely compromised. Having been a police officer for more than 30 years, I'm far more accustomed than I would like to be with the cycle of politically expedient spending freezes fast becoming politically inexpedient as crime and public dissatisfaction rise.
Regrettably, the police service is not only facing a funding crisis in 2008 but a crisis of confidence here and now – a crisis that poses even more immediate problems than those outlined by Brain.
As it stands, for the first time in more than a quarter of a century, more than 170,000 police officers in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will not receive their annual salary increase. At such a testing time for the service, officers will effectively receive less for doing more.
In 1978, an independent inquiry led by High Court judge Lord Edmund-Davies recommended that police pay be boosted annually according to an agreed indexation of private sector wage increases. This recognised not only policing's inherent dangers, but also the fact that it is an imprisonable offence for officers to take industrial action. In short, it gave police personnel financial security in exchange for them accepting restrictions on their personal freedoms.
This year the Treasury took the decision to cap all public sector pay increases at 2%. The indexation by which police pay is linked this year is 3%, and so temporarily exceeds this ceiling.
Yet examine pay deals struck by other public sector services that exceed this 2% ceiling – all of which have the right to strike – and it is abundantly clear that police officers have been hung out to dry. After all, why confront a recalcitrant union that can take industrial action when there are far easier savings to be made elsewhere?
Officers see this as an affront to the service. Policing is as unique today as it was in 1978. The police still have an array of restrictions on their personal lives; they are still accountable for actions or inactions 24 hours a day and they still have to exhibit almost unparalleled commitment and bravery as a matter of course. In fact, in so many ways, policing has become more challenging and dangerous – as the injury figures testify. Undermining police officers' financial security also undermines their status as independent and impartial officers of the Crown.
But there is still time for a fair resolution. The police negotiating board will soon go into arbitration and the official and staff sides will have a final opportunity to make their respective cases for a pay deal. And whatever the police arbitration tribunal's recommendations, the ultimate decision will rest with the home secretary on whether or not to ratify it.
Of late, much has been made of the massive increase in the number of Whitehall press officers, so I'm sure the Home Office will be braced for front-page headlines should officers voice their misgivings en masse. What I am less sure of is whether they are prepared to answer questions from the public as to why officers feel so let down.
On the face of it then, this episode is simply an issue of police officers on the one hand doing all they can to preserve their status and the status of their service, and accountants on the other intent on making savings at any cost. There are, however, a number of wider and more profound questions that are easily overlooked in all the furore over percentage points on a pay packet.
First, the independence of the police negotiating board. All negotiating boards should be independent of pressure from outside forces. It is therefore disconcerting to see that the PNB appears to be singing from a Treasury-supplied hymn sheet. Negotiating boards must do many things, but foremost among these is that they must inspire the confidence of the workforce. This is even more important with police officers because they do not have recourse to industrial action.
Second is the link to the police service's wider modernisation. To claim that there are insufficient funds in the coffers at a time when millions of pounds have been spent on an amalgamation programme predicated on saving money is spurious at best; to do so when the service is midway through the hasty recruitment of 24,000 community support officers and when most police authorities have already budgeted for a 3% increase in salaries is fatuous.
The argument is that somehow the principle of indexation has had its day. Somehow, modernisation, change and success have become confused and conflated. But they are not the same thing. Many of us in the public sector will no doubt be observing and attending fringe meetings at the various party conferences. The same message will be repeated time and time again: Whitehall is addicted to change for change's sake. MPs and ministers will nod and concur with customary aplomb. The only problem? As soon as they return to Whitehall, so will the need to generate headlines and so, too, will the addiction to change.
The police service must understand that to believe that 'something changed is something improved' is as flawed a philosophy as opposing any change at all. In policing, indexation's very longevity is its greatest strength. It does not need tinkering with or tearing up – it needs preserving.
In the short term, many officers are so frustrated that they are even considering working to rule. No officer wants to, and it is still avoidable. But the ball is in the government's court. In the longer term, if we do see a sustained reduction in police pay, I fear we will also see an inevitable reduction in the pool of high-quality applicants that the service has strived so hard to attract. Under such circumstances, our performance would inevitably suffer, and the crisis of confidence could lead to something even worse: a crisis in professionalism.
The future may be uncertain, but one thing is clear. Decisions made behind closed doors at the Treasury and the Home Office in the coming weeks will determine the standards of policing outside our front doors for many years to come.
Jan Berry is chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales
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