Pay attention! Police perceive pay as declining despite pay actually rising

In the recently announced 'plan for change', the prime minister promised a recruitment drive for police officers with an aim to get 'more bobbies on the beat'. Acting chair of the Police Federation Tiff Lynch welcomed the announcement of a recruitment drive, but he warned that real terms pay cuts in recent years were the reason for low morale amongst police officers.

However, the police have received large pay increases in recent years, especially when compared to other public sector workers. In 2023, officers received a pay rise of 7%, the highest of all public sector workers such as teachers and junior doctors who received increases of 6.5% and 6% respectively in their pay. Additionally, the average annual earnings of police officers in 2023 was around 23% more than in the whole economy.

In 2024, there was a greater increase in pay still, with a 4.75% increase starting on 1 September following the government’s commitment to providing greater support for policing in order to 'take back our streets', 'crack down on antisocial behaviour with more neighbourhood police', and to 'rebuild public confidence in policing'. The 4.75% increase from 1 September places the police in between firefighters, who received a 4% increase in pay, and NHS medical professionals, who received a much-needed pay rise of 5.5%.

Furthermore, since the financial year ending 31 March 2016, there has been a significant overall increase in police funding as evidenced in statistics released by the Home Office in August 2024. Figure 1 below illustrates this swelling cost:

Figure 1: Overall funding (£ billion) for policing since the financial year ending 31 March 2016 (UK GOV)(in nominal terms)

The reality is, then, that the police are amongst the largest beneficiaries of public sector workers in the 2020s, which is a far cry from their perception of consistent cuts and underfunding. In the Social Market Foundation’s 2023 report on police perception of pay, 78% of the respondents voiced their discontent regarding how much they were paid, with 81% attributing this as a cause of low morale. A further 92% also complained that their pay did not reflect the difficulties of the job. Additionally, 85% felt that they were better off five years ago than they are now. Given the cost of living crisis, Brexit, austerity measures, and the pandemic, this is perhaps unsurprising; their general dissatisfaction reflects wider concerns across the UK regarding renumeration and challenging financial times. Regardless, low morale amongst the police is still framed as an issue connected to pay cuts and underfunding, which is irreconcilable with the reality that they have received sizeable pay increases when compared to adjacent public sector professions and that there are other factors affecting everyone at play.

Further increases in police funding naturally means there will be an increase in the amount the British taxpayer will have to pay. There are plans for council tax rises in order to provide the police with an additional £330 million, which constitutes a 3.5% real terms rise from the previous year. This is on top of the significant amount of council tax that has already being used to fund police forces in the last decade. London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has also advocated for more increases in police pay: since 2016, City Hall has doubled funding to the Met, and now constitutes 25% of the force’s budget, up from 19%.

Disappointingly, this consistent increase in funding in recent years has had no material benefit on the standard of policing throughout the country. There has been no tangible improvement made in either the reduction of crime or in officer conduct, yet police officers continue to ask for more funding despite the fact that, as put by Andy Cooke in the 2023-4 HMICFRS Report, they 'still aren’t getting the basics right' and that 'forces aren’t doing as good a job as they should be'.

This council tax rise is particularly unacceptable in police constituencies that have police forces that have been placed in special measures (officially known as Engage), meaning their conduct has been considered so poor as to warrant increased scrutiny and monitoring. The police constituency of Devon and Cornwall, for example, has remained in special measures since 14 October 2022 owing to concerns over crime data integrity and poor management of sexual offenders. Despite this, police funding for Devon and Cornwall in 2025/6 is earmarked to increase to around £430 million, up £23.5 million from the previous year. This increase in funding shall be achieved with the help of a government grant, council tax rates doubling for holiday homes, and general council tax rises in the area. Elsewhere, despite recently coming out of special measures, the Met has received similar rises in funding despite poor performance and evidence of systematic issues. Consequently, millions of British taxpayers are being burdened with tax rises despite no evidence of it making a difference to police forces, which is particularly disgraceful when the increased funding is going towards police forces that have fallen far below an acceptable standard.

So, there is evidently a disconnect between the reality, being that police have consistently received pay rises and better funding, and the perception that pay is inadequate and that funding is insufficient. Pro-police actors are quick to attribute low police morale to this lack of funding; however, perhaps this low morale is a sign of multiple issues. In their survey on pay and morale in the police, the SMF found that increasing workloads, the risks inherent to the job, and a lack of respect from the public were amongst several factors that contributed majorly to lower life satisfaction amongst police when compared with the general public. Thus, the consistently voiced argument from pro-police actors like Conservative party politician PCC Matthew Barber that the police are in desperate need of higher pay to combat low morale despite increased funding being given masks the complexity of the problem.

Nevertheless, as it is clear that the increased funding to the police in recent years is having no material improvements, why should the British taxpayer be expected to keep throwing money at police forces who do not know how to use this extra funding in a meaningful way? Is voicing these complaints to the new Labour government, who are historically known for their sympathy toward unions and public sector workers, seen as an easy way in which to increase funding? It is suggested that if there are indeed problems with funding, it is not because they are not getting the money: the police should look more to how to best use this money rather than to complain that it is not enough. Far more attention should be paid to how this money is spent given that increased funding has had no material improvement. This issue was highlighted in the HMICFRS Report 2023/4, which found that police forces are often 'providing a poor service to the public when they have sufficient funding to provide a good one'. If the police are indeed concerned about low morale in their officers and poor performance, it is abundantly clear that they should be looking elsewhere other than lack of pay rises and funding to explain why.

By Oliver Patterson, StopWatch volunteer

All blogposts are published with the permission of the author. The views expressed are solely the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of StopWatch UK.