‘Bobbies on beat will be cut to fund 2pc pay rise’
SENIOR police chiefs were locked in a bitter row with ministers last night after claiming they would be forced to cut the number of officers on the beat to fund a 2 per cent pay rise for their staff.
Downing Street yesterday announced it was scrapping a 1 per cent cap on public-sector pay rises in place since 2010, with police getting 2 per cent and prison officers 1.7 per cent.
But there will be no new money for pay rises in this financial year, meaning chief constables will have to fund wage increases out of existing budgets.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council said it would “impact on our ability to deliver policing services and maintain staffing levels”, but Nick Hurd, the policing minister, hit back by saying that forces were “sitting on” at least £1.5billion in reserves and could afford the £30million cost of the pay award.
Union bosses accused Theresa May of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and said the below-inflation rises were “paltry”.
Meanwhile trade unions threatened to carry out illegal strikes after demanding a 5 per cent pay rise for all public-sector workers.
The 1 per cent pay rise cap was imposed by George Osborne when he was chancellor in 2010, but Downing Street said Mrs May had accepted that “more flexibility” was needed to attract and retain workers with the right skills to deliver “world class” public services.
Prison officers will receive a 1.7 per cent rise in 2017-18, while police officers will be given a 1 per cent lump sum on top of the 1 per cent rise already awarded.
This year’s increases will be funded through savings elsewhere in prisons and police force budgets, but further rises for public-sector workers are expected in 2018-19, which are likely to be funded through increases in government spending to be announced in the budget on Nov 22.
Chief Constable Francis Habgood, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for pay and conditions, said: “On average, police officer pay makes up over 50 per cent of total force budgets, which have had real-terms cuts of 18 per cent since 2010. Police chiefs have
budgeted in line with the public sector pay cap until 2020, so this change puts financial pressure on already stretched budgets.
“Without better real terms funding protection from Government, an award above 1 per cent will inevitably impact on our ability to deliver policing services and maintain staffing levels.”
He accepted that police forces held reserves, but said they were needed to cover “unexpected costs” such as responding to terrorist attacks.
The Armed Forces, the NHS and doctors and dentists will be the next public sectors to have pay reviews, in March, meaning their pay rises might have to be addressed in the autumn budget.
The leaders of three of the biggest public sector unions – Unite, PCS and GMB – said they could stage illegal strikes to fight for a better deal. Len Mccluskey, leader of Unite, compared himself to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, who broke “unjust laws” as he said he was prepared to call strikes even if ballots did not meet new laws that say more than 50 per cent of workers must vote and that more than 40 per cent of those must be in favour.
He said: “I will support our members. If that means we are outside the law, then so be it. I dare say if you’d have been interviewing Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi or the suffragettes you’d be telling them that they were breaking the law.
“The truth is when a law is wrong, not only is it important to stand up and say so, it is our duty to resist.”
Tim Roache, leader of the GMB union, added: “Our members will exercise their right to strike. Without their right to strike our members are slaves and we would never, ever accept that.”
The increase in the annual inflation rate to 2.9 per cent made sustaining the public sector pay cap at one per cent hard to justify; but the Government never made any real effort to do so. As was apparent during the general election, the economy no longer engages ministers in the way it once did. The Brexit vote led the Treasury to loosen fiscal restraints, but it also seems to have stopped the Conservatives making a coherent case for continued prudence.
The loss of a majority has left Theresa May vulnerable to concerted action in Parliament to end austerity, with many Tory MPS unhappy with the pay ceiling. The Prime Minister is probably making a virtue out of a political necessity by removing the cap, initially for the police and prison officers though doubtless more will follow.
It is true that workers in the public sector have seen their living standards fall as pay has failed to keep pace with rising prices. But that is true for everyone, too. In fact, since the recession hit after the 2008 financial crash, public sector pay has fallen less than that in the private sector.
There have been indications recently that private sector pay has made up ground on the public. But once the cap is removed, the differential will grow once more. This has implications for private sector recruitment in parts of the country that rely heavily on public spending. Furthermore, the public sector unions will use the Government’s largesse to press for big rises: they immediately put in demands for five per cent yesterday.
Yet unless Philip Hammond, the Chancellor – who was initially opposed to lifting the cap – is going to find another £5 billion or however much it will cost to meet the increases, jobs will be lost or other services will suffer. Since a stated aim behind the campaign to end the cap is to arrest a decline in people working in the NHS or teaching, how will it help to reduce staff to meet pay demands?
If the Government thinks that it will be thanked for this decision, it was swiftly disabused by the union reaction yesterday. The leader of Unite, Len Mccluskey, warned that “coordinated public service workers’ action … is very much on the cards”. The Labour Party takes its lead from its union paymasters, and John Mcdonnell, the shadow chancellor, has even been working with them to bring the Conservatives down. The Government may come to rue the day it gave in.