Pay arrangements in forces surrounding London: implications for the MPS

Report: 5
Date: 9 November 2000
By: Clerk

Summary

This report informs members of a formal offer by the Official Side of the Police Negotiating Board to introduce an outer London allowance for post-Sheehy police officers from six forces surrounding London; and considers the implications for the MPS.

A. Supporting information

1. At the Police Negotiating Board meeting on 19 October, the Official Side made a formal offer to introduce a two-tier outer London allowance for police officers appointed on or after 1 September 1994 (and not in receipt of a housing allowance). Details of the allowance are at Appendix 1. The allowance would be payable within the following forces: Bedfordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey and Thames Valley. The Staff Side has now been invited to consider the offer.

2. According to the statement from the Official Side, the offer has been formulated “to balance the recruitment and retention requirements of the six forces operating within the tight South East labour market against the needs of London and other forces”. It is said to follow “a well-established pattern elsewhere in employment of inner and outer “fringe” payments in areas surrounding London”.

3. The offer arose from continuing work by the PNB Official Side London Pay Working Party, on which the Commissioner is represented. The Working Party had undertaken to consider the implications of the London pay lead on the forces adjoining London once the pay lead had been agreed. The Commissioner’s representatives had expressed concern that introducing additional pay for police officers in adjoining forces would undermine the benefit achieved for MPS officers. Nevertheless, the Working Party which had been augmented by representatives of the six forces affected, came to the conclusion on balance and after lengthy discussion, that the £6000 pay lead for MPS officers over those in adjoining forces would be likely to have a considerable adverse impact on those forces. The Working Party decided that the two-zone arrangement would be a reasonable compromise and one which would not have a “ripple” effect on forces beyond the six affected.

4. The offer by the Official Side, if accepted and implemented, is bound to reduce the effect of the stimulus to MPS recruitment and retention afforded by the Home Secretary’s decision last June to increase the London pay lead to a total of £6,000 for post-Sheehy MPS officers, in that the differential in pay rates between the MPS and forces surrounding London would be significantly reduced. The MPS is collecting data which are beginning to measure the actual position and will present these to Members at the meeting. The emerging data supports these concerns.

5. The Chairman is the MPA’s representative on the PNB. He was aware that the issue was being discussed but not aware that an offer was about to be tabled. He has commented that the offer effectively undermines the London pay lead and is very unhelpful.

6. The MPS believes that the pay offer will be raised at the next full PNB meeting on 8th February 2001. If the Staff Side accepts the offer the allowance will probably become payable quite quickly.. If they reject the offer, the options for PNB will be to refer the matter immediately to arbitration; or to remit it back to PNB Official Side for further work. For either of these options there would be an opportunity for the MPA to reiterate the earlier concerns expressed by the MPS in relation to substantial erosion of a pay differential designed to aid MPS recruitment and retention.

B. Recommendation

That members take note of the unhelpful implications for MPS recruitment and retention of the Official Side’s offer, if accepted and implemented; and consider what action (if any) is open to the Authority to prevent or mitigate them.

C. Financial implications

There are no direct financial implications arising from this report.

D. Review arrangements

The Human Resources Committee monitors MPS progress on recruitment and retention from month to month. The full Authority monitors progress across all aspects of MPS performance on a quarterly basis.

E. Background papers

The following is a statutory list of background papers (under the Local Government Act 1972 S.100 D) which disclose facts or matters on which the report is based and which have been relied on to a material extent in preparing this report. They are available on request to either the contact officer listed above or to the Clerk to the Police Authority at the address indicated on the agenda.

None.

F. Contact details

The author of this report is Peter Edwards.

For information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Appendix 1: Statement from the official side of the Police Negotiating Board

Pay arrangements in forces surrounding London

At the Police Negotiating Board meeting of 19 October 2000, the Official Side made a formal offer to introduce a two-tier outer London allowance for police officers appointed on or after 1 September 1994 (and not in receipt of a housing allowance).

The allowance would be paid with effect from 1 September 2000 as follows :

• £2,000 p.a. for officers permanently posted within the area of a Basic Command Unit wholly or mainly within a 30 mile radius of Charing Cross (London).
• £1,000 p.a. for officers permanently posted within the area of a Basic Command Unit wholly or mainly within a 40 mile radius of Charing Cross (London) and not covered by the higher allowance above.

The allowance would be taxable, non-pensionable and would not count for overtime purposes.

The allowance would be payable within the following six forces:

• Bedfordshire
• Essex
• Hertfordshire
• Kent
• Surrey
• Thames Valley

Those police officers posted within their force area away from a BCU area attracting the allowance would be protected for two years on a cash freeze basis.

This offer has been formulated to balance the recruitment and retention requirements of the six forces operating within the tight South-East labour market against the needs of London and other forces. It follows a well-established pattern elsewhere in employment of inner and outer “fringe” payments in areas surrounding London. Such arrangements already exist for police support staff and are also common in other parts of the public sector.

The Staff Side have now been invited to consider this offer.

19 October 2000

For further information contact:

Graham Baird, PNB Official Side Secretariat: 020 7296 6722
Paul Barrett, ACPO Office: 020 7227 3413
Robin Wilkinson, APA Secretariat: 020 7664 3169

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