Surrey PCs will receive higher starting salaries

Surrey Police has become the second force to reject the Winsor proposals on police constable pay, and will offer new recruits £22,000pa from next month.

Following the announcement by Hampshire Constabulary that it will give PCs £21,500 a year, instead of the £19,000 starting salary under the new pay agreements, discussions between Surrey’s chief constable, Lynne Owens, police and crime commissioner (PCC) Kevin Hurley and federation representatives led to the consensus on offering a higher rate of pay.

The salary represents a £1,000 cut from previous wages, but Mr Hurley said the force was balancing the need to make cuts with paying PCs a fair rate for their jobs.

“I know from 30 years’ experience that policing is not a job that you can simply leave behind when you clock off. It is who you are,” he said.

“The public expect to be served by motivated and emotionally intelligent police officers, people who can deal with their problems with professionalism and sensitivity. It will become increasingly difficult to attract people of that calibre into policing if we cannot at least provide them a respectable starting salary. It will hinder our ambitions to make policing an attractive career to people of all backgrounds and maintain a police force that properly reflects the diversity of the society it serves.”

Ms Owens said: “On behalf of the people of Surrey, I know the role of the police constable is critical to the service we deliver. This is an increasingly challenging time for policing and we need to ensure we continue to attract and retain the best calibre of people – the public in Surrey deserve nothing less.”

Mike Dodds, chair of Surrey Police Federation, said he was “grateful” for the revised salary rate which
he said was necessary to attract talented officers to an area which is expensive to live in, adding other neighbouring forces may need to do the same to avoid losing out.