Dear members

As you will know by now, Home Secretary Theresa May announced last week that she was accepting in full the decision of the Police Arbitration Tribunal in respect of the recommendations into police pay and conditions outlined in the Winsor Review’s first report. The key purpose of the decision was to reduce the police pay budget and thereby to reduce Government spending.

This has left front line police officers with a number of understandable questions about their future livelihoods and what the Police Federation of England and Wales is actively doing to protect the standard of living of police officers. We hope this document – which is fairly lengthy but we hope you will take the time to read - will start to answer some of those questions.

We will address:

• What the Federation nationally did during the negotiations on Winsor part 1 report
• Our reaction to the Home Secretary’s decision to honour the arbitration ruling
• What the Federation is doing as a result of the Home Secretary’s decision
• What happens next? How the changes to police officer pay and conditions will be introduced
• The debate over seeking the right to strike/taking industrial action

Subsequent correspondence from Greater Manchester Police Federation will build on this information – starting with live a question and answer session with Federation chairman Chris Burrows and chairman elect Ian Hanson on Monday 13 February at 2pm, facilitated through our Twitter and Facebook pages.

May we start by saying that everyone in Greater Manchester Police Federation understands the anger and frustration that officers currently feel with the way they are being treated by the Government. We also feel this anger and frustration but we also believe that to go into any negotiation with anger is not productive and puts us in a losing position from the start.

The Police Federation, nationally and locally, have derailed the intentions of this Government and Winsor to bulldoze through a raft of conditions that would have destroyed the future of the police service in our opinion. The Police Federation were a lone voice against the recommendations of chief officers from ACPO – including our chief constable Peter Fahy - and the Association of Police Authorities who initially supported the Winsor recommendations.

You will all have sympathy with our Police staff colleagues who are being put at risk, losing their jobs and facing a very uncertain future in a job market in which they are going find extreme difficulty finding any job outside of working for the Police. You may also be aware that the Public as a whole do not have much sympathy with us when it comes to Police pay and conditions.

This is, in the main, due to them losing jobs and taking pay cuts and this situation is definitely not helped by the one-sided news stories in national newspapers which define officers as overpaid and being given high bonus payments and large overtime awards. They are not interested in printing the opinions of officers and staff associations when we try to defend the fact that officers work in difficult and unsociable conditions, that the additional payments are not bonuses and that actually officers would rather not work extra to what they are expected to work. This does not make good news or sell newspapers.

Over the past few months, we in the JBB office and your representatives across the Greater Manchester Police area have worked hard to speak to MP’s, members of the public and the media to explain to them why the Winsor recommendations are unfair. Many officers have risen to the call to lobby their local MP and we know through talking to these MPs your efforts have made a difference and many of them sympathise with our position.

We thank every officer who took the time to write and visit their MP and those officers who joined us in attending Westminster in July. Your contribution did make a difference. It put pressure on the Government to negotiate with the PFEW and to listen to the arguments put forward as to why the Police as a whole are being treated unfairly.

As we now move forward into Part 2 of Winsor, with the report due out within the next month, we will renew this lobbying and consultation process and will hopefully once again influence the understanding of MPs and the public to understand that Tom Winsor, through his recommendations, is destroying the police service and undermining the ‘Office of Constable.’

What has actually happened over the past few months? Tom Winsor, a former rail regulator, having been asked by the Home Secretary to review police pay and conditions, made over sixty recommendations concerning if all of these had been agreed, the future of being a Police officer would look very different to what it does now.

We believe it would have dealt a devastating blow to all officers and Police staff.

When Winsor published his recommendations in March 2011, the Home Secretary sent them to the Police Negotiating Board. The Police Negotiating Board is a United Kingdom non-departmental public body established by Act of Parliament in 1980 to negotiate the pay and terms and conditions of employment of the British police. It is funded by the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Office of Manpower Economics provides the Board with an independent secretariat.

The PNB has an independent chairman and deputy chairman appointed by the Prime Minister, whose roles are to supply an independent voice in all negotiations. When agreement between the Staff Side and the Official Side cannot be reached after negotiation nor subsequently resolved through conciliation the relevant issues are referred to the Police Arbitration Tribunal (PAT). Awards by the PAT have the status of a recommendation by the PNB as if it were an agreement by both sides, so they are effectively binding on both the Staff and the Official sides of PNB due to paragraph 39 of the PNB Constitution

However, such decisions are not binding on the Home Secretary and she can overrule any decisions as she did in 2010 when an agreement was made at PNB to higher the vehicle mileage allowance and the Home Secretary overturned this decision. Ian Rennie, PFEW general secretary and a Greater Manchester Police officer, sits on the Staff side of PNB and has played a difficult role in negotiating from the Official side starting point of imposing ALL of Winsor 1.

The Staff side agreed a small number of the recommendations but fought hard to get rid of some recommendations altogether and to convince the Official side that there were alternative and better ways of saving money. The Official side did not want to listen to a lot of these alternatives and that is why the stalemate went to the PAT.

PAT agreed with some of the Official sides’ arguments but also agreed with a lot of what the staff side said too.

Areas which the Staff Side were able to achieve for officers – contrary to what Tom Winsor wanted in his part 1 report – via the Police Negotiating Board and the Police Arbitration Tribunal included retaining time and a third overtime, the mutual aid overtime allowance being significantly higher than originally proposed, some retention of the incremental scale for those young in service and the continuation of the competency related threshold payment for those already in receipt of it.

Our quick reference guide to the results of the arbitration decision might offer some further explanation to the decisions on your pay http://www.gmpfederation.com/whats-new/178-comparison.html

Paul McKeever, Chairman of the PFEW, said last week he was pleased Theresa May honoured the decision. So why was he pleased?

Last Monday (29 January) the Home Secretary had three choices:

1. Agree to ratify the decision of PAT
2. Disregard the decision and impose all of Winsor
3. Put off the decision and wait until Winsor part 2 was published.

We believe the second two options would have crippled the Police Service and therefore the first option was the best one to make the best of a bad situation, a situation that we do not agree with but managed to negotiate to a minimum from what it could have been.

But Paul McKeever also stated:

“Whilst we accept that the decision of the PAT is binding on both Sides of PNB, it does not mean that we’re happy with the outcome. Whichever way you dress it up, this will mean serious financial hardship for police officers. This government is unduly targeting police officers.”

Each of the PAT decisions must now be returned to the Police Negotiating Board to negotiate and discuss each specific decision.

Some of the questions we cannot yet answer are

Can I choose ANY day as a bank holiday?

The simple answer is we don’t know at this stage.

One of the important questions for junior officers is around the increment suspension and what it means

IT IS A SUSPENSION. They are not getting rid of it.

But then other questions emerge

Where do they go back in the increment process? –

The Federation view is ---where they should be

The Official side view --- where they left the process

The Federation will fight this decision to PAT

Legal advice states that the suspension is a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate outcome in order for the Government to retain jobs in the short term- the Federation cannot fight it in court.

For further information on these and other recommendations please look at the web link below

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/corporate-publications-strategy/home-office-circulars/circulars-2012/006-2012/

What happens next?

Clearly officers will have questions about the implementation of the PAT ruling. The PAT did not specify a deadline for any of its recommendations to be implemented, but it did envisage that the necessary changes to administrative processes to implement its recommendations would have been completed by 1 April 2012. Subsequent to the Home Secretary’s announcement, details of the timeframe in respect of the implementation and operation of the changes set out in the PAT ruling will be set out in a Home Office Circular and in draft determinations which are subject to consultation within the Police Negotiating Board.

All forces must implement determinations and change in Regulations in the same way and at the same time. The new draft regulations are in process now, with consultation to be completed by the 12th of March 2012 - they are with the Federation’s legal department now. The Federation’s concentration is on damage limitation and this will continue when moving forward into implementation stage.

The PFEW believes it is extremely unfair to implement cuts whilst not implementing the pay increases such as the new shift allowance. Therefore they will try an influence a complete implementation all at the same time.

Officers have asked---What about the second Winsor report into police pay and conditions?

Winsor has now announced a delay in part 2 so that he can take account of what was not implemented in part 1. It is likely to come out in the next month. One of his big Issues will be how to identify which roles qualify for additional payments.

The Federation view is that a proper evaluation of the police service will take longer than 2014/5 when the next election occurs and there is a need for the Government to do it properly. The health service took four years to do a proper evaluation and they still have not got it right.

A complete evaluation will cost a lot of money and the police service has not got the money. The Government must make a decision as to whether it wants to pay for it.

We believe Winsor has been forced back to the drawing board. The PAT decision has undermined Winsor’s recommendations

Officers have asked---Why don’t we go for the right to strike?

The answer is extremely complicated and involved but the fact is we believe that we do not want the right to strike because of everything else it would bring with it.

Below is a simplified explanation for those officers who are maybe not convinced. No group or body of individuals will solely get the right to strike………….it comes as a complete package of industrial rights in respect of employment law……..to which, generally speaking, police officers are not aligned to.

However, within that package will come areas which the government will rub their hands with glee. For example, if police officers are given industrial rights then the Police Authority will be allowed to treat us like our police staff colleagues.

That means that police officers – if they become employees - can be put ‘at risk’ at any time in their service i.e. their job is at risk and they can be subject of compulsory redundancy within a few months of being served the papers.

The reason that doesn’t happen now is that over the years the Federation has fought the corner through Police Regulations rather than employment legislation and consequently officers have a guaranteed job unless subject to UPP or misconduct proceedings.

As we speak, a significant number of our police staff colleagues across the country are being served with their at risk notices which means that, potentially, in just a few months’ time they will be out of a job. We believe, as police officers, we need to be careful what we wish for.

In conclusion

Nationally and locally the Police Federation fully understand what officers on the ground feel. You work hard to protect the public of Greater Manchester as much as you can whilst abiding by the rules of law and you have our word that we will work hard to protect you as much as we can whilst abiding by the rules of engagement with the Government and within the Police Regulations.

We promise to keep you informed.

Chris Burrows, chairman, Greater Manchester Police Federation

Ian Hanson, chairman elect, Greater Manchester Police Federation