Police Pay and Bargaining in the UK, 1978–2000
| Date | 01 March 2003 |
| Published date | 01 March 2003 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8543.00260 |
Polic e Pay and Bargaining in the UK,
1978^2000
Laurie Hunter
Abstract
Police pay and conditions in the UK are governed by a unique mechanism, the
Police Negotiating Board. This paper reviews the c ircumstances in which it was
set up and examines the outcomes, relative to other public service workers, over
the first twenty years of its operation. Recent developments highlight the role
of ministerial intervention and raise questions about the relationship between
the PNB negotiating system and working practice at police force level.
1. Introduction: a brief history
The New Labour government has shown its willingness to tackle head-on a
number of areas of public-sector activity, such as education and the health
service, where it believes there is a need for greater effectiveness and quality
of service in the public interest. A recent example is the police service, where
the pay, conditions and deployment of police resources are now subject to a
form of ministerial intervention that runs counter to the collective bargain-
ing practice that has been built up over a period of over twenty years. This
makes it an appropriate time to consider that practice and the underly-
ing institutional arrangements, to assess how police bargaining practice has
performed, and to comment on the rationale for, and consequences of, the
latest intervention.
Surprisingly, there has been little or no major academic consideration of
the unique arrangements for the determination of police pay in the United
Kingdom, which were established in 1979. Voluntary collective bargaining
takes place within a national negotiating body under independent chairman-
ship, supported by an independent secretariat. Although there is no national
police force in the United Kingdom, pay and conditions have been set
centrally since the Desborough Committee Report of 1919, with national rates
of pay. In the post-1945 period strains became evident. Ad hoc committees
of review (Oaksey 1949: Trustram Eve 1951) did nothing to resolve the
Laurie Hunter is at the University of Glasgow Business School.
British Journal of Industrial Relations
41:1 March 2003 0007–1080 pp. 29–52
#Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2003. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
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longer-term problems, and in 1959 a Royal Commission was set up under
the chairmanship of Sir Henry Willink, which recommended a formula for
pay negotiation to allow for the fact that the police have no right to strike
(Royal Commission on the Police 1962).
1
To implement this, in 1964 the
Police Act established the Police Council for Great Britain (revised to
include Northern Ireland in 1969). The Council, based on the Whitley
Council model, had an Official and a Staff Side, with a statutory consti-
tution and rules of procedure approved by the Home Secretary. The
chairman was elected annually, alternating between the sides.
Problems increased in the 1970s as incomes policy imposed limits on pay
increases, biting hard in the public sector. Police pay deteriorated relatively.
Morale, recruitment and retention of police officers declined, and
dissatisfaction with the role of the Police Council led to increased discussion
within the police service about the introduction of a right to strike. Impasse
was reached in 1976–7 following determination that any agreement must
fall within the terms of the current incomes policy, and the three Police
Federations withdrew from the Police Council. A pay claim from the Police
Federations in September 1977 sought an increase of between 78 and 104 per
cent, but was met by a government response of only 10 per cent. To assuage
the growing discontent and manpower problems, the Labour Government
set up a Committee of Inquiry on the Police, chaired by Lord Edmund-
Davies.
2
The Edmund-Davies Report (1978) went beyond reconstruction of the
pay formula, and recommended new negotiating machinery in the form of a
Police Negotiating Board (PNB). It retained the Official–Staff Side division
but introduced an independent chairman, with one or two deputy chairmen,
to provide continuity and to ‘supply a genuinely neutral voice in the to-and-
fro of negotiation and help very considerably in bringing the two sides to
agreement’ (p. 30). An independent Secretariat would ‘provide a firm basis
of background knowledge and expertise for the use of all concerned in the
negotiating process’, combining administrative functions with ‘researching
and assessing data on pay, to be supplied to both sides of the [Board] before
negotiation’ (p. 31). The principle of national rates of pay would continue,
as would the embargo on the right of the police to strike. Staged salary
increases of 40 per cent were awarded and future pay rises for federated
ranks and superintendents were to be linked to the increase in the average
earnings index for the previous 12 months: for chief police officers updating
would be based on a combination of the index and ‘changes elsewhere in the
community’.
The first meeting of the new PNB took place in August 1979, under the
independent chairmanship of Lord Plowden – a member of the Edmund-
Davies Committee. The new machinery operated without major incident until
1992, when Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke set up a major inquiry into
police responsibilities and rewards under the chairmanship of Sir Patrick
Sheehy. The Report was delivered to the new Home Secretary (Michael
Howard) in June 1993. Radical thinking was asked for and delivered. The
30 British Journal of Industrial Relations
#Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2003.
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