The pay cut you’ve heard about is the so-called ‘X Factor’ reduction, one of the proposals put forward by Sir Tom Winsor in his review of police pay and conditions. The proposed pay reduction would apply to officers who were not ‘fully deployable’ and whose ‘limited duties’ status would adversely impact on Force resilience, with certain exemptions such as officers injured whilst carrying out policing duties. As ever, the devil is in the detail – no one can agree on how deployability and Force resilience should be tested, and in any case there is considerable resistance to implementing what has already proved to be an unpopular and controversial measure. The DPA has campaigned against X Factor since its proposal, as we believe it to be fundamentally unfair.

The good news is that no one’s pay will be cut in the near future – the advice from the Federation is for officers subject to a pay reduction of this nature to seek legal advice on their position.