Dear Members,
The good news is that the 6month delayed pay award has now been ratified by the Home Secretary, which means you will finally see something tangible in your bank accounts on the 23rd Feb.
What’s not so good, is yet another shambolic so-called independent pay process which is tightly controlled behind the scenes in order to deliver precisely what the Government wants/permits, before the Home Secretary will finally sign it off.
This year, the promises of a £1500 payment, which you were told sat separately from the Pay Review process, quickly disappeared into the ether. This week’s wholly unpalatable explanation that the payment had to be absorbed into the general pay award increase and could not be considered or delivered as a separate payment, is a shameful betrayal.
Why? Because 7% was clearly always going to be the offer this year given the fact that in July 2023 the recommendations of the Police Remuneration Review Board (PRRB) had already seen a 7% increase signed off by the Home Secretary.
To cement this position, the Agency proudly announced that this year, the NCARRB report would cover all staff. A bare minimum 7% for all then - with an additional £1500 payment on top of that, which is quite separate from the annual pay process, as promised to you by your Director General 6 months ago.
The NCARRB themselves appear to be keen to distance themselves from the untold damage this vanishing payment has caused within the workforce, by diplomatically commenting,
‘It is deeply regrettable that commitments were made to NCA officers in the summer of 2023 which could not then be fulfilled. In our view, it is for the NCA and the Government to handle the consequences of those previous commitments to NCA staff’.
On the day of the pay award announcement, senior NCOA officials and members of the National Executive met with members at the Bristol Office, who were quite rightly frustrated and dismayed at the outcome of the 2023 pay process.
Whilst many of you have withdrawn your goodwill in response to the length of time it has taken to deliver the August 2023 settlement, laying bare the details of the actual pay award, provide little reason it seems, to step back from that action - which is most definitely impacting NCA operations across the UK, and beyond.
Critically, the 2023 award is once again to be funded from within existing budgets. This will heap added pressure on you all in an organisation which is already struggling to recruit and retain, yet happy to burden its hardworking staff with an ever-increasing workload and remit.
Unfortunately, the process appears to have degraded over the past two years in particular and in anticipation we had already engaged with lawyers prior to Wednesday’s announcement, to understand if there is any legal challenge we can pursue on your behalf regarding the 2023/24 NCA pay process.
Whilst a judicial review is currently at the top of our considerations, this is not without its own challenges, which means we will be guided by experienced Kings Counsel before making a decision with that regard.
We took the decision to let the dust settle so you could reflect on the process to date, and work out what the award means to you before reaching out. It is now our intention to refresh our withdrawal of goodwill ballot to understand whether you want to simply accept this imposed pay award and move on or, continue with delivering no more than your contractual obligations as employees of the NCA.
Please take part, saying nothing is not an option at this time. The NCOA will respect any decision which is reached.
Whatever happens, the current pay model though, is clearly not delivering in your best interests.
Regards
Simon Boon
NCOA General Secretary
Head to www.policeoracle.com for more analysis on the 2023/24 Pay Award