Press Releases - 2002

22 February 2002

Police Vote on National Pay and Conditions

Officers in the Police Service of Northern Ireland have overwhelmingly rejected a new pay package negotiated at the Police Negotiating Board. Over 64% of the Force's 7,000 officers voted and rejected the package by 89.2% to 10.8%. This is the first time that officers in the UK Police Service have been ballotted on pay and conditions.

The Police Negotiating Board for the UK (PNB) had been forced by the Home Secretary to put together the best package it could on a set of proposals devised by the Home Office over a matter of weeks at the end of last year. The pay and conditions package was subject to ratification by police officers.

The proposals included a £400 increase to basic pay and the promise that schemes for special priority payments and bonus payments would be worked up over coming months. Some allowances would be abolished or reduced and, most controversially, overtime rates would be cut from time and a third to time and a fifth, from time and a half to time and a third, and from double time to time and a half.

The results of the votes across the UK have to be reported to a meeting of the PNB on Monday 25 February. The Constitution of the PNB dictates that should there be no agreement, the process moves to conciliation and arbitration. However, Mr Blunkett has warned that if there were a 'no' vote it would be 'disastrous' for the police service.

Jimmy Spratt, Chairman of the PFNI, said: "We warned Government that this package would not be acceptable to the officers. We negotiated the package as far as we could but we have made it clear that we were not in agreement with its contents. It therefore came as no surprise to us that the membership have rejected it. This is a clear mandate to the Federation which we will take back to Government."