Police deserve better

Jan 5 2008 by Paul James, The Journal

Police are calling for the right to strike to be restored after the Home Secretary chose not to backdate their pay rise to September. But it is not the first time that officers have revolted against Whitehall. Here Tom Gleeson, a retired Northumbria Police superintendent, tells how the current unrest has come to a head because of an “undignified” and “Scrooge” Government that has “welshed” on its law enforcers.

IT CAN truly be said of our current Government with regard to the dispute over police pay, that they can be seen as knowing the price of everything, and the value of nothing. Think Ebenezer Scrooge.

Not that in their attitude to the police they are, as a Government, in any way unique.

Following a police strike in 1919, officers were not allowed afterwards by law to strike.

They could not join a trade union, although if they held union membership prior to joining, they were allowed to retain it.

This truly left them in a weak bargaining position. The strike later led to the formation of the Police Federation – the police “union” – catering for the ranks of chief inspector and below.

Between the wars, the depression, and the consequent surplus of manpower, produced a total filling up of establishments as allowed by the Home Office, but following the end of the war in 1945 the number of applicants to join the police service was next to nothing, especially in the Metropolitan Police.

This led to a committee being formed (The Oaksey Committee) in 1948.

Lord Oaksey, a senior law lord, and father of John Oaksey the racing pundit, had been a British Judge at the Nuremberg Tribunal.

The report of this committee led to an immediate improvement in police pay and conditions.

However such improvements ground to a halt by the mid-1970s with a breakdown between the police on one hand and the Government on the other, mainly on pay.

The police pay was so meagre that younger officers with families qualified to receive Family Income Supplement.

The resulting furore led to marches on Westminster by resolute police wives (their husbands being barred from doing so by statute).

The Home Secretary, and his car, were additionally given a rough ride at the Police Federation Conference at Scarborough that year. A strange offshoot of this dispute happened to this writer, who at this time was a uniformed inspector on Tyneside.

Out of the blue I received a telephone call from Joe Mills, the leader of the AEU, a powerful union centred in Newcastle.

I only knew of him by repute, never having met him or even spoken to him.

He had read an article I had written in The Journal and he told me how appalled he was by the reports of police conditions, especially financial.

He informed me that on behalf of his union he was going to offer admission to his union to all serving police officers in an effort to improve their conditions, and he asked my view on his proposal.

I thanked him for his concerns but I told him it was a non-starter, as it was prima facie unlawful.

I explained to him that police officers were prevented by legislation from joining his union, no matter how well-intentioned. The late Joe, it seems, did not know of the existence of the Police Federation. He expressed his great surprise and also said he would get back to me after checking out the position with his legal department.

Two days later he telephoned me again to agree that it was a non-starter and said how disappointed he was not to be able to help.

And with that second call, the spectre of police officers standing shoulder to shoulder with Brothers Scargill, Livingston and Skinner disappeared forever.

Following yet another committee, in 1979, police pay markedly improved and a new negotiating machinery was established, until this was abandoned this year.

This machinery had generally served the police service equitably, at least until now.

The current, undignified spectacle of a Government reneging on an arbitration award might not be unique, but it ill-fits any sense of fair play.

If the full 2.5% were paid in full, the Treasury would claw back from the gross amount a large amount in income tax, extra police pension contributions and extra National Insurance payments.

This would mean that if the net amount were put in the eye of the Treasury, it would not make it blink.

Surely the police service deserves better than this? Considering the inherent danger to officers, especially in these terrorism and drug-fuelled times.

The pay is adequate, without being generous and the current amount now on offer would amount to a decrease in real terms, allowing for inflation.

The Home Office has the residual power to impose a pay settlement, and eventually possibly will, if wiser counsel does not prevail.

If this Government were a bookmaker, every racecourse in the country would warn them off for welshing.

The general public, if not the Government, seem to be fully aware of the chaos which would ensue should there be any police withdrawal of labour, whether at road accidents, sudden deaths or violent crime, or any Saturday night, anywhere.

The residue of ill-feeling, which a forced settlement will engender within the service, will clearly be too high a price to pay for both the police and the public, merely in order for the Government to gain such a pyrrhic victory.

Let us hope it does not come to that.