The Need for Pay Reform in Police and Probation

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Conference
2018 Police & Justice Service Group Conference
Date
20 June 2018
Decision
Carried

Conference notes that work has begun in both the police and probation sectors to examine the case for pay reform. Conference welcomes this work, because many police force pay and grading systems, and the sector wide pay and grading system for both the National Probation Service and the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies, have not been the subject of review for many years and this is now long overdue.

Conference recognises that good pay equality practice requires all pay and grading systems to be regularly reviewed to ensure that they remain free of discrimination, or bias, of any description.

Conference welcomes the work that has started on Part 2 of the Police Staff Council Pay and Reward Review which is taking place in England and Wales. Part 2 of the Review will look at how police staff basic pay is determined and administered by forces and whether such arrangements remain fit for purpose including looking at job evaluation schemes and grading schemes. The review will also examine the relationship between police staff pay and the wider workforce transformation programme being led by the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs Council. Conference expects Part 2 of the Police Staff Council Pay and Reward Review to be comprehensive and potentially far reaching in the work it undertakes.

By comparison with the police service, Conference is concerned at the lack of progress on pay reform in either the National Probation Service, or the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies. Conference notes that the National Negotiating Council (NNC) pay and grading system was created in 2006 and has not been subject to any review by the employers since that date, despite the NNC agreeing in 2010 to undertake such a review. Conference recognises that the disastrous Transforming Rehabilitation reforms have disrupted any attempts since to undertake pay reform, including the termination of pay reform talks in the National Probation Service in 2017, due to financial mismanagement at the Ministry of Justice. For their part, the Community Rehabilitation Companies have refused, or been unable, to undertake pay reform because they are waiting for a lead from the National Probation Service and on account of the financial viability of their contracts now having collapsed.

Conference therefore calls on the Service Group Executive to:

1)Support all Police and Justice Service Group Sector Committees to seek to ensure that negotiations on pay reform take place in a timely and constructive way with full consultation with branches and members;

2)Call on the government, and all employers covered by the Police and Justice Sectors, to seek to fully fund any pay reform outcomes which are agreed via collective bargaining.