13th January 2012
STATEMENT ON WINSOR PART 1 NEGOTIATIONS click here
12th January 2012
Latest Winsor Part 1 Update
Please find attached for information the award made by the Police Arbitration Tribunal (PAT) in respect of the PNB dispute over the Winsor Part 1 recommendations for police officers.
This award relates only to police officers and has no impact on police staff terms and conditions.
A query has been raised by some branches in relation to Winsor Recommendation 20, accepted by the PAT, and referred to in the attached award, which states that:
‘Police officers and all members of police staff below the top of their scale should be suspended at that increment for a two-year period commencing September 2011’
Members should be reassured that the PAT’s acceptance of this Winsor recommendation relates solely to police officers. This recommendation, as it relates to police staff, is still under discussion at the Police Staff Council and will be the subject of further talks. We expect to issue an update to branches following the PSC Pay and Reward Working Party which takes place tomorrow.
Click here to view document
Winsor 2 Call for Evidence
Further to my comment encouraging everyone to make our feelings known please visit here and take part in the Independent Review of Police Officers and Staff Remuneration and Conditions and send direct to: The Independent Police Pay Review Secretariat, 5th Floor, Globe House, 89 Ecclestone Square, Victoria, London SW1V 1PN. All responses should be received by 12 September 2011.
Model Letter on Winsor Review to send to MP
31st May 2011
Dear Friends
Please click here to view a letter for you to replace the red asterisks with your details and to send to your MP in relation to the proposals for police staff contained in Part 1 of the Winsor Review.
The letter is aimed specifically at members who stand to lose income under the Winsor recommendations, although it will impact on us all.
You can find your MP at using this link and send by email or post.
Kind regards
Caren
Joint Union Statement on the Winsor Review
03th May 2011
Dear Friends
Please find attached joint union statement from UNISON, UNITE and the GMB in relation to the Winsor Review. The statement was agreed at the meeting of the Trade Union Side of the Police Staff Council on 19 April and has been sent to the Employers’ Side.
Kind regards
Caren
Click here to view
Government response to the Part 1 report of Tom Winsor's Review.
04th April 2011
Dear Friends
Please see below UNISON’s response to this document entitled Police Remuneration Commons to view click here.
Kind regards
Caren
Reply from UNISON HQ
Colleagues
Please see the Home Secretary’s written statement to Parliament today containing her response to Part 1 of the Winsor Review into Police Pay. The statement confirms, as UNISON expected, that the Home Secretary is now referring the Part 1 recommendations to the Police Staff Council and the PNB and PAB.
We therefore expect that the Winsor Report will be on the agenda of the Police Staff Council when it next meets on 19 April.
UNISON’s position remains that there is very little which we could sell to our police staff members in Part 1 of Winsor. It contains a series of recommendations to freeze incremental progression and remove key allowances from operational police staff, and, unlike the recommendations for police officers, proposes to give nothing back in return. The Home Secretary talks in her statement about the need to tackle the deficit and ensure that the tax payer gets a good deal from the public sector. Police staff are told that they must accept pay restraint as a result.
UNISON reminds the Home Secretary that police staff are already bearing the brunt of the Government’s austerity measures in the police service. With Tom Winsor choosing to retain the immunity of police officers from redundancy in his Report, police staff will continue to carry the burden of the Government’s cutbacks, and are paying with their jobs and their families’ livelihoods. Nearly 4000 police staff are likely to lose their jobs in the next few months, with ACPO predicting this figure rising to 16,000 by 2013/14.
So UNISON says, ‘No Home Secretary, our members are already paying the price of your Government’s cutbacks; cutting their terms and conditions will add insult to injury.’
UNISON remains open to reforming the way in which police staff are paid and rewarded. We expect Part 2 of the Winsor Report, to be published in June, to be more progressive and to set out some ways in which the pay and conditions of the whole police workforce could be reformed to make them more fair and equitable. UNISON makes it clear that we are up for this debate. But for our members to consider major changes to the way that they are paid and rewarded there will need to be something positive on the table for us to bargain over. Part 1 of Winsor is all take and no give and is no basis for a deal. We await Part 2 with interest.
Ben Priestley
National Officer
Latest Update from UNISON HQ on The Winsor Review
22 March 2011
UNISON is aware that on 18 March Tom Winsor issued a follow up letter to police staff and officers headed: ‘Police Pay Review – Effect on Individual Officers and Staff’. Tom Winsor has asked forces to forward the letter on to staff and officers. Your force may have sent it to you already.
The letter begins: ‘Following the publication of Part 1 of my review of police pay and conditions last week, I should like to provide you with more facts on the effect that it may have on your take-home pay.’ The letter goes on to give a series of examples for police officers, but admits, ’It is more difficult to provide meaningful illustrations of the likely effects of these proposed reforms on the take-home pay of police staff because of their localised nature.
UNISON is aware that the publication of Part 1 of the Winsor Review has caused worry and concern to police staff members. Please find below a statement by UNISON in response to the 18 March letter from Tom Winsor. Please distribute to all members.
1. Police staff should be aware that the Winsor proposals are just that – proposals. They carry no weight until the Home Secretary announces whether she has accepted them or not and we have no indication of how long she will take over this process.
2. Once the Home Secretary has told the Service which of the recommendations she wishes to accept, these recommendations will presumably be forwarded to the Police Staff Council (for police staff) and the Police Negotiating Board (for police officers).
3. The Home Secretary has no powers of determination as far as police staff terms and conditions are concerned. In other words, the Home Secretary has no powers whatsoever to vary the terms and conditions of police staff. It will be up to the negotiators on the Police Staff Council to decide whether they wish to accept and negotiate on those Winsor recommendations put to them by the Home Secretary. Nothing can be changed outside of this negotiation.
4. UNISON Police Staff Branches have received clear instruction from UNISON nationally to resist any local attempts to change the terms and conditions of police staff as set out in the Police Staff Council Handbook.
5. Most police forces will pay increments to those police staff eligible to receive them on 1 April 2011. These increments are contractual, have been budgeted for by forces and are unaffected by any of the Winsor recommendations, which Tom Winsor has confirmed are meant to take effect only after 1 September 2011.
6. UNISON has already issued a very clear message that it is angry at the lack of balance in Part 1 of Tom Winsor’s report and that there is very little in Part 1 that could form part of a deal to reform police staff pay and conditions. We will await the publication of Part 2 of Tom Winsor’s Review to see if it contains the basis for a medium to long-term deal on police staff pay and conditions reform.
Initial statement on the first report of 'Independent Review of Police Officer's and Staff Pay and Conditions'
14 March 2011
Proposals to cut members' pay and conditions, but no job security for police staff in Government Pay Review.
UNISON, the trade union for police staff in England and Wales reacted with anger to the publication today of the first report of the Independent Review of Police Officers and Staff Pay and Conditions. Whilst the report advocates protecting police officers' immunity from redundancy, awarding them a new 10% shift allowance, a new £15 standby allowance and a new £1,200 'professional accreditation allowance', police staff who make up 40% of the workforce are invited to shoulder a 2 year pay increment freeze and lose key premium payments in return for nothing definite on job security. This is happening at a time when ACPO is predicting 16,000 police staff redundancies in the next four years.
Ben Priestley, National Officer for UNISON's 45,000 police staff members, said:
'I am surprised by the lack of balance in the first report of the Independent Review. Our police staff members will react angrily to what is in the report. It gives us nothing to sell the suggested pay reforms to our members with. Any changes to police staff terms and conditions need to be negotiated at the Police Staff Council and only a balanced package would receive the assent of our members. This is all take and no give.'
The Report's author Tom Winsor suggests the following cuts to police staff pay and conditions:
- A two year freeze on pay increments starting from September 2011. Tom Winsor suggests that UNISON will, '...recognise the opportunity to safeguard a significant number of police staff jobs by agreeing to the suspension of progression increments for the next two years.' However, with most forces paying the 2011/12 contractual pay increments to staff in two weeks time on the 1 April, there seems to have been a misunderstanding on the part of the Review Team as to the timing of pay progression for staff.
- The introduction of a performance related pay scheme for the future award of increments
- The abolition of the weekend working allowance
- The reduction of Sunday overtime working allowance from double time to time and a half
- The reduction of standby allowance from £28.26 to £15
The Report is available here.
UNISON had expected some changes to police staff pay to be recommended by the Review, but with officers appearing to gain from additional allowances, not offered to staff, police staff will feel angry at the apparent unfairness of the package. The proposals do nothing to change the reality that police staff will continue to bear the brunt of wholesale cuts to police budgets by losing their jobs. Whilst officers will continue to enjoy a no-compulsory redundancy deal, our members are asked to sacrifice key terms and conditions in return for a very vague promise that this might save some jobs sometime in the future. That's not the basis for a deal.
8th March 2011
Police pay review calls for end to special payments
To read full report from BBC News click here
Who Is Tom Winsor? - Find out more here
For Publications on The Winsor Review