New Met police video

[Chief Bakes 6,479]

NPCC argues some forces would benefit from better targeting of cash and has identified specific ones where it is needed.

Chiefs have made another plea to the independent remuneration review body to allow them to pay bonuses to officers in specialist roles.

Last year the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and the Met Police in even stronger terms, told reviewers there was an urgent operational need to address the shortage of detectives and firearms officers with targeted cash incentives.

Its latest submission repeats this call and outlines which forces need the payments and for which roles, in the table included below.

There are 19 forces who the NPCC say should be able to pay bonuses to detectives, 11 for firearms officers, ten for custody officers and one for surveillance officers.

On top of that, Durham has difficulties filling detective sergeant and inspector roles, and Norfolk child abuse investigator positions.

The Met’s submission says: “We know that some of these roles carry higher risk and may be deeply unpleasant however our officers put themselves forward to do this for no additional reward and unsurprisingly these roles are proving harder to fill.

“We know that monetary reward is not the only lever available but to have no reward options to attract officers into a particular career path remains deeply problematic, particularly as the operational structure becomes flatter with decreased opportunity for rank progression.

“In London the lack of such financial incentives is likely to limit the take up of pilot schemes and skew resulting evidence.”

It says this is particularly needed for detective roles, and urges the pay review body to ignore any objections to the idea from the Police Federation.

A lack of legal protection for firearms officers has sometimes been cited as a reason for a shortfall of those.

More than a year ago then Prime Minister David Cameron ordered a review into this issue but the government is yet to have completed it.

A Home Office spokesman told PoliceOracle.com the review is still ongoing but refused to say when it might be completed or explain what it involves.

In a joint remuneration submission, the Police Federation of England and Wales, together with the Police Superintendents’ Association acknowledged the forces highlighted above have said they have difficulty recruiting in certain areas.

“However, there is, as yet, no quantification of the degree of the problem,” it says. “Perhaps, even more importantly, there is no analysis of the reasons: it is not known whether this is related to pay, or whether it is an issue that needs to be addressed in another way.”

Remuneration body chairman David Lebrecht highlighted the lack of evidence it would work as his reason for rejecting the idea in the last review report.

Last year's rejected suggestion that bank holidays be abolished for police officers has not been repeated in this round of submissions by chiefs.

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