Pay award confirmed at 3.5 per cent

The Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB), in its twelfth report, recommended 3.9 per cent for all ranks up to and including chief superintendent. The Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) recommended 3.7 per cent for chief officers. The Government has applied 3.5 per cent flat to all ranks and pay points, a decision that undercuts both and removes the differential the SSRB proposed for the chief officer ranks.

Ms Mahmood said the figure was the highest award manageable within existing police force and Home Office budgets while enabling continued delivery of the Government’s crime and policing priorities.

To meet the additional cost, the Home Office will provide £84 million in 2026-27, £144 million in 2027-28 and £145 million in 2028-29 — the 2026-27 figure representing a part year, with the award taking effect in September. The Home Secretary said the money came from contingency budgets created through what she described as rigorous reprioritisation, difficult decisions and savings exercises during and after Spending Review 2025.

It will be allocated using Police Funding Formula shares.

That mechanism is one the PRRB addressed directly in the same report. The review body set out its view that the position on the funding formula is deteriorating and no longer fit for purpose, welcomed the White Paper commitment to review it, and said urgent action was required. The Government is therefore distributing the money intended to close the gap on this year’s pay award through the instrument the review body has just told it is broken.

Affordability gap

The PRRB’s report records that the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) told it forces had built 3 per cent into their 2026/27 budgets, but that 2.5 per cent represented the limit of affordability beyond which critical service cuts would be required, even where forces had planned for more. Government evidence to the review body warned that anything above 2.5 per cent would require difficult reprioritisation.

The confirmed award is a full point above the ceiling chiefs identified and half a point above what forces budgeted for. Whether the Home Office’s recurring contribution of roughly £144 million a year closes that gap, or leaves forces funding part of the award from budgets already set at a lower figure, is not addressed in the statement.

The review body also declined to take the affordability case entirely at face value, noting that the Government had recently announced 2026/27 awards for other parts of the public sector significantly above the 2.5 per cent set out in its own affordability evidence.

Of the PRRB’s twelve recommendations, few have been rejected outright. Most of those the Government accepted have had their implementation dates removed.

The review body recommended abolishing the ten-day qualifying period for the Acting Up Allowance from 1 September 2026. The Government has accepted the recommendation but says it will instead be implemented following consultation on amendments to determinations made under the Police Regulations 2003.

The PRRB recommended that maternity support leave entitlement rise to two weeks on full pay from 1 September 2026. The Government has accepted this and extended it to adoption support leave — a step beyond the recommendation — but the second week of full pay will be available only to officers meeting the existing service requirements for statutory paternity pay, and implementation again follows consultation.

All Protection Allowance rates will rise by £8 from 1 September. The PRRB’s accompanying recommendation, that rate three apply for each day an officer is deployed to a qualifying country, will be subject to further discussion with stakeholders.

London Weighting rises by 3.5 per cent, as do the maximum rates of the London Allowance and South East Allowance. The PRRB had recommended these be uprated in line with the pay award and specified 3.9 per cent; the Government has followed the formula rather than the figure.

Agreed changes

On the review body’s recommendation that all outstanding agreed changes to police regulations and determinations be implemented by the end of 2026, the statement says the Home Office will work with policing stakeholders to develop a realistic timetable. The PRRB has raised the delay in translating agreed employment law changes into police regulations across successive reports, describing it in this one as a longstanding concern.

Its proposed remedy — that statutory employment changes exceeding existing provision apply automatically and concurrently to officers when enacted by Parliament, and that statutory minima should not be treated as policing’s default position — has been noted rather than accepted. The Government’s response emphasises that the review bodies will continue to have a role in advising on enhancements beyond statutory minimum rights.

The SSRB’s recommendation received similar treatment. It asked that the Home Office and NPCC work with policing stakeholders to develop a solution at pace to address chief officer retention through all stages of policing reform. The Government will consider how best to take this forward with the NPCC.

The statement does not mention the PRRB’s recommendation that a national workforce strategy be shared with the review body by December 2026. The PRRB describes the strategy as central to the White Paper reforms, has pressed for it in each of its last four reports, and says progress has been slower than expected.

Mixed reaction

The Police Federation of England and Wales accused the Government of “fatally undermining the credibility” of the police pay review process and describing the decision as a political choice with lasting consequences for policing and public safety.

National secretary John Partington said the award was “a pay rise on paper only, not in officers’ pockets”, and that going against the advice of its own expert review body sent officers a clear message that the Home Office would ignore the evidence. He argued that an award barely beating inflation will drive experienced officers out, make recruitment harder and weaken public protection, and pointed to real-terms rises found for junior doctors and train drivers.

Partington also went after the architecture rather than the number, characterising a process in which the Government appoints the review body’s membership and sets what it may consider, then declines to accept the result. The Federation is now calling for binding arbitration alongside collective pay bargaining. Members of the federated ranks are prohibited from taking industrial action.

That argument runs close to one the PRRB makes in its own report. The review body says it gives weight to the prohibition on industrial action, and that where officers are expected to forgo industrial rights, regulations and entitlements must be honoured consistently and fairly — adding that this is currently not always the case.

In its evidence to the review body, the Federation had called for a minimum 7 per cent award in each of the next three years. The spread of positions before the Home Secretary was therefore wide: 7 per cent from the Federation, 3.9 per cent from the PRRB, 3.7 per cent from the SSRB for chief officers, and an NPCC affordability ceiling of 2.5 per cent.

NPCC chair Chief Constable Gavin Stephens said officers deserved pay reflecting the demands placed on them and that the NPCC had argued for an above-inflation award. He said the NPCC was “disappointed that the full recommendations” of the review body had not been accepted, but recognised the award was above inflation and welcomed the additional funding, which he said went “some way” to addressing acute financial pressure on forces. Years of underinvestment, he added, had left forces choosing between maintaining services and paying the frontline.