The Home secretary has announced that the PNB will be abolished and it will be replaced by a Pay Review body instead. This will mean that police officers will lose their power to negotiate on pay. Instead evidence is considered and the Home Secretary then decides.
In response to the announcement Paul McKeever the Chairman of the Police federation has said:
“We are extremely angry and disappointed by today’s announcement by the Home Secretary that she has accepted Tom Winsor’s proposal to abolish the Police Negotiating Board and introduce a Pay Review Body. Not only is the time scale for this consultation extremely short for such a major piece of work but the timing of the consultation impinges upon the period of Purdah prior to the election of the Police and Crime Commissioners.
“We are baffled how this government intends to conduct a meaningful consultation process when we as a country are about to enter a period Purdah; It is within the PCCs remit to take responsibility for the policing budgets and to set policing priorities. Yet these key stakeholders are prevented from engaging in the process on how the mechanisms of police pay are decided.
“The existing negotiating machinery, together with independent arbitration, was set to protect police officer who hold a unique position in society.
“This announcement flies in the face of the government’s own policy on policing to de-centralise decision making and thus provide greater local accountability. On the one hand the government says they have respect for the role police play in society and yet their actions contradict this at every turn.”
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