Police pay rise: Officers' salary to increase 4.2% in England and Wales
The increased salary, which has been approved by the government, will apply to all ranks up to and including chief superintendent.
It will also be backed by £120 million of extra funding from the Home Office.
The Police Federation said the pay award 'barely treads water' with the current rate of inflation and equates to 'a Big Mac per shift'.
The pay rise puts the starting salary for a police constable at £31,163, typically going up to £50,257 after six years, while the average salary for a chief superintendent will be £98,500.
Allowances for on-call, away from home and hardship will increase by £10 and London weighting will go up by 4.2 per cent.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: 'Our brave police officers work day and night, often making enormous sacrifices, to keep us safe.
'This government is proud to back them in doing so and today's pay award is a clear signal of our gratitude, and our determination to ensure they are properly rewarded for their service.'
Brian Booth, deputy national chairman of the Police Federation, said: 'Today's pay award of 4.2% barely treads water, with inflation currently at 4.1%.
'We note that chief constables argued for a pay rise of just 3.8%. We welcome the government's decision to reject that position and instead listen to the strong case we have been making on behalf of police officers across the country.
'However, after more than a decade of real terms pay cuts, this award does little to reverse the long-term decline in officers' living standards or address the crisis policing faces.
'A pay rise worth the price of a Big Mac per shift won't stop record levels of resignations, record mental health absences, or the record number of assaults on officers.'
The federation, which represents more than 145,000 officers, will now ask its members whether they want to accept or reject the award.
The National Police Chiefs' Council's lead for pay and conditions, Philip Wells, said: 'We are pleased that the pay review body recognised the evidence that was presented by chief constables and the pay award that has been announced today is what we believe our officers deserve and reflects the nature of the work they are required to undertake to keep our streets safe.
'Today the Home Secretary also announced an extra £120 million towards funding the pay award.
'With more than 85% of police spend being on pay costs, it is vitally important that additional costs for pay are fully funded if we are to maintain services and be able to continue to invest in areas such as neighbourhood policing and technology.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BreakingNews.ie
38 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Lammy not accepting Iran's claims over enriched uranium
Foreign Secretary David Lammy says he does not accept Iran's claims that the country is enriching uranium for academic purposes. Representatives from the United Kingdom, Germany and France held talks with Iran last week to try to break the deadlock over the country's nuclear programme. Advertisement Tehran maintains it is open to diplomacy, though it recently suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A central concern for western powers was highlighted when the IAEA reported in May that Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% – just below weapons-grade level – had grown to more than 400kg. In a wide-ranging interview with The Guardian, Mr Lammy said: 'Its leaders cannot explain to me – and I've had many conversations with them – why they need 60% enriched uranium. 'If I went to Sellafield or Urenco in Cheshire, they haven't got anything more than 6%. The Iranians claim it's for academic use, but I don't accept that.' Advertisement Mr Lammy warned that Iran developing nuclear weapons could lead to an escalation of tensions in the Middle East. Israel and the United States carried our strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June. 'Many of your readers will have watched Oppenheimer and seen the fallout of (the US building an atomic bomb),' he said. 'So it's what (a nuclear Iran) might mean in terms of other countries in the neighbourhood who would desire one, too. And we would be very suddenly handing over to our children and grandchildren a world that had many more nuclear weapons in it than it has today.' Advertisement The Foreign Secretary said he had heard Israeli arguments in favour of regime change in Tehran, but did not believe that was behind the US decision to strike. The Tottenham MP added any decision to topple the government was one for the Iranian people, with his focus 'on what the UK can do to stop Iran becoming a nuclear power'. Last month, Mr Lammy suggested that Britain, France and Germany could 'snap back' on sanctions against Iran unless the country gets 'serious' about stepping back from its nuclear ambitions. He told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee: 'Iran face even more pressure in the coming weeks because the E3 can snap back on our sanctions, and it's not just our sanctions, it's actually a UN mechanism that would impose dramatic sanctions on Iran across nearly every single front in its economy. Advertisement 'So they have a choice to make. It's a choice for them to make. 'I'm very clear about the choice they should make, but I'm also clear that the UK has a decision to make that could lead to far greater pain for the Iranian regime unless they get serious about the international desire to see them step back from their nuclear ambitions at this time.'
BBC News
38 minutes ago
- BBC News
Region's knife robberies rise despite 'dedicated task force'
Knife robberies have risen in Greater Manchester despite the creation of a special taskforce set up to combat the problem. The rise is relatively modest at 4%, but other areas considered knife robbery "hotspots" saw reductions, including a 25% drop in the West Midlands. The government announced the taskforce following a steep rise in knife crime in seven police force areas, and the scheme has led to a 6% drop nationally since July 2024. Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, Kate Green, said the continued rise in region was related mostly to business robberies, and that "personal robberies" were coming down. Greater Manchester Police has recorded 1,345 knife-enabled robberies in the past 12 months, up from 1,288 recorded between July 2023 and June Green said the figures showed the increase in robberies was also "slowing down". "There's certainly much more to do," she said. "It's why we have a whole lot of initiatives running over this summer, policing the hot spots, stop and search, stopping vehicles and identifying the habitual knife carriers." The statistics include robberies involving the threat of a knife even if a blade is not actually seen by the victim. Moss Side based anti-knife crime campaigner and youth worker Kemoy Walker, whose nephew Prince Walker-Ayeni was stabbed to death aged 17 in April last year, said young people believed "boredom" was a factor in some offending. He told BBC Radio Manchester: "Young people have called out for diversionary activities because what they're saying is the reason why a lot of these things are happening in the community is because they're bored and they've got nothing to do."So as youth workers we've come up with a bit of a plan to try and look at what we can do to support the young people and that's what we're doing locally."Between July 2023 and June 2024, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, the West Midlands, Avon and Somerset, the Metropolitan Police and the British Transport Police areas accounted for 70% of knife robberies set up in those areas in July 2024 used tactics including drones, knife arches and detection dogs, with the seven forces also increasing visible patrols and the number of plain clothes officers on the Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "When we came to office, knife-enabled robbery was increasing at a concerning rate."We have now started to drive numbers of those offences down through the work of our dedicated taskforces, and as a result, we have also seen the first small reduction in overall knife crime for four years." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 223
The Guardian
38 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Openreach engineers trial panic alarms as incidents of abuse and assault soar
From scissors being brandished as weapons to verbal abuse and being trapped during a home visit, the number of reported incidents of abuse and assault on telecoms engineers is on the rise. Openreach, the BT subsidiary that maintains the vast majority of the broadband network serving UK homes and businesses, recorded 450 reports of abuse and assault in the year to the end of March. The number of incidents involving Openreach employees was up 8% year-on-year, a 40% increase on 2022-23 and seven times the volume reported almost a decade ago. Abuse and assault has for the first time become the largest cause of injury to Openreach office staff and its 22,000 field engineers. Managers believe the number of incidents is even higher, as many cases are not reported by staff. 'I used to be worried about people falling off ladders, road traffic accidents or tripping over potholes,' said Adam Elsworth, health and safety director at Openreach. 'But actually we have seen a steady increase in violence and abuse. 'A quarter of all the accidents we record are now someone being attacked or abused, and it is continuing to rise. And when I look at these incidents I struggle to see the rationale behind the level of escalation.' Incidents reported by engineers include being shouted at, sworn at or spat it, the blocking of vehicles, being shaken off stepladders, or pushed down stairs while working at someone's home. There are also reports of racial abuse, inappropriate and threatening behaviour towards female engineers, homeowners preventing staff from leaving and specific incidents such as scissors being brandished like a weapon and a customer repeatedly slamming a vehicle door on an engineer's leg. For Openreach, around half of incidents are in public locations, 45% are at homes and the remainder occur at the company's yards or estate. Elsworth said Openreach was trialling a 'panic alarm' on engineers' mobile phones, which connects them in seconds to a monitoring centre that has the power to directly dispatch emergency services if required. 'If an engineer is at someone's home, that is quite a vulnerable space to be,' he said. 'Some of the incidents are quite disproportionate and have created a wariness among engineers. When someone has been attacked, they are then thinking every time they knock on a door what could be coming next. 'A number of these cases do get reported to police, particularly in the case of the more severe ones. It is difficult when there is a threat element.' While Openreach faces the largest number of incidents, it is also a growing issue for other telecoms operators. Virgin Media O2, which has around 4,000 employees working on its cable network and cell masts, reported 26 incidents last year covering physical encounters, verbal abuse and threatening behaviour. However, so far this year the reported number of incidents is up significantly, tracking at a rate that would mean the number doubling for the full year. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion 'Our frontline teams work tirelessly to provide reliable mobile and broadband services millions of customers rely on every day,' said a spokesperson. 'A single incident of abuse or threatening behaviour is one too many, and we're committed to ending workplace violence and keeping our people safe.' At Sky the number of incidents involving engineers in the field reached 99 last year, although the company said it was not seeing any upward trend this year. Sky said it was back to pre-Covid levels of incidents after an increase during the pandemic, with a peak of 392 reported incidents in 2021. The newly-formed VodafoneThree collated about 40 to 50 incidents, while BT-owned EE did not reveal numbers but said that the figure was low. Last month, the major telecoms companies were among 100 co-signatories of an open letter from the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) calling on the government to amend the crime and policing bill. The bill will make it a standalone offence for assault on a retail worker, the sector that has been the most vocal about the safety and security of staff. As it stands the bill does not offer any protection for customer-facing workers across other sectors – including telecoms and infrastructure – with the ICS estimating that about 60% of the UK workforce operates in some form of customer-facing role. 'You hear about the situation in sectors such as retail, trains, public transport but telecoms is a bit of a forgotten child in this,' said Elsworth. 'But when you are talking about engineers in someone's home, well that's quite a unique challenge.'
