Federation: 7% goes some way to rectifying where policing has fallen behind on pay.

14 July 2023

The 7% police pay increase is welcome news and goes some way to rectifying the real-terms pay cut over recent years, but officers are still struggling, the Civil Nuclear Police Federation has said.

Yesterday the Government announced that it had accepted in full the recommendation of the Police Remuneration Review Body, and that officers of all ranks will receive a pay increase of 7% from September.

The Civil Nuclear Constabulary has an agreement that its officers have pay parity with Home Office forces, so its officers will also receive a 7% pay deal.

According to the independent think tank Social Market Foundation, police officers have had a 17% real-terms pay cut since 2000, when taking inflation into account.

The CEO of the Civil Nuclear Police Federation, Gary Thwaite, said: "This uplift is welcome news, and it's long overdue. I appreciate that we're still behind on inflation, but 7% goes some way to rectifying where policing has fallen behind on pay.

"We still have to recognise that policing is behind where it should be. Our officers are still struggling."

Gary added that some Civil Nuclear Constabulary officers were feeling so out of pocket that they were leaving their policing roles to join jobs in the nuclear sector.

He said: "We've still got problems, in that the sites that we police are very competitive employers in their own right. We're competing with them, because our officers have very professional backgrounds and they could move to those jobs for better pay. We are seeing this quite a lot recently, and will monitor it closely.

"But the officers I spoke to yesterday said they didn't expect a 7% pay rise; I think they were expecting the worst. Let's face it, we have been conditioned over years to expect the bare minimum. So, the general feel has been cautiously optimistic. It's a lift at a time when my colleagues needed it."