- Conference
- 2015 Police & Justice Service Group Conference
- Date
- 18 June 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Conference is aware that Home Office funding for the Police Staff Council (PSC) for England and Wales is currently guaranteed only to September 2015. This funding provides for the offices of the Employers Side Secretariat, which has been delivered since the inception of the PSC in 1996 by the Local Government Association.
Conference is aware that since the demise of the Police Negotiating Board (PNB), the Home Office no longer funds the negotiating machinery for police officers, which has been replaced by the new Police Pay Review Body (PPRB), run from the Office of Manpower Economics (OME). Underneath the PPRB is a consultative body funded by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) where the police associations and the employers come together to discuss employment matters other than the annual pay award.
Conference believes that the continuation of Home Office funding for the Police Staff Council is absolutely essential for the following reasons:
a)The PSC has been a successful negotiating machinery for the last 19 years and has maintained industrial peace for the entirely of its existence.
b)The PSC is currently in the middle of a major negotiation on the future of police staff pay and reward, which will not be concluded by September 2015, and therefore any withdrawal of Home Office funding would seriously jeopardise the outcome of these negotiations.
c)The government is providing significant public funding for the PPRB and it would therefore be unfair and unjust for government funding not to be provided for the equivalent police staff negotiating body.
Conference therefore instructs the Service Group Executive to work with the Police Staff Council to:
1)seek to ensure that Home Office funding for the Police Staff Council is maintained;
2)work with the Police Staff Council Employers Side to maintain the current funding arrangements;
3)work with the other PSC trade unions – Unite and GMB – to seek to safeguard PSC funding;
4)seek to ensure that there are contingency plans in place to protect the Police Staff Council as a national negotiating body.