West Midlands Police plans to pay new recruits £22,000
West Midlands Police has proposed that the starting salary for new police officers will be £21,999 the maximum possible amount.
West Midlands Police has proposed that the starting salary for new police officers will be £21,999 the maximum possible amount.
Under regulations proposed in Tom Winsors Independent Review of Police Officer and Staff Pay and Remuneration the salary could have been set as low as £19,000.
The final report, published in March 2012, detailed changes to pay that allow forces to lower police officer starting salaries but allow them to progress more quickly to higher pay scales.
The police and crime commissioner (PCC) for the West Midlands, Bob Jones, said that the increased wages for recruits will attract higher calibre officers.
He said: I never supported Tom Winsors recommendation to reduce police officers starting salaries to £19,000. We have to attract the best people into policing, and the starting salary should reflect that.
However, now that the other three forces in our region (Warwickshire, West Mercia and Staffordshire) have all set a starting salary of £22,000 it would be perverse for salaries to be lower in the West Midlands, particularly as the challenges an officer is likely to face are greater here than in many other places.
I do not support differential salaries, but if anything salaries should be higher here than elsewhere. We could not have a situation where the best and brightest candidates are lured away to other forces where the needs are lower.
The proposal was due to be discussed at a PCC decision-making meeting yesterday (Wednesday, January 8).
If approved, recruitment will start in April 2014.
The chair of the West Midlands Police Federation, Ian Edwards, welcomed proposals to start recruiting again, but said with a cap at £22,000, many high-quality candidates would not apply.
He said: Its great to be recruiting and we do need to stem the tide; weve gone from 8,600 officers to about 7,200.
My only concern is whether the starting salary up and down the country is going to attract people aged 25 to 35 with life experience who perhaps have some supervisory capacity under their belts.
I guess they would be going up the pay scale in their chosen careers, [so to enter the police service and] to leave another job and to come into a role at £22,000 a year I guess theyll be taking a pay cut.
While Bob [Jones] is doing the best he can as PCC to pay the most that he can, I have a concern that nationally those people will be excluded as the starting wage is very low.