Our Staff Side (the Scottish Police Federation, ASPS and SCPOSA) have now published our police pay claim for 2025/26. This year, our headline claim is for a 4.5% increase for all pay points and all ranks.
As you know, last year’s pay negotiations were difficult and we ended up going to arbitration. Here in Scotland we are awaiting The Fraser of Allander Institute’s report into pay levels, previously agreed by the Police Negotiating Board Scotland (PNBS) which we hope that will influence pay decisions. We know there has been a degradation in police pay over the past few decades. That’s why this year’s claim also includes a claim for 15% pay restoration.
Research in the rest of the UK shows that police pay, in real terms fell by 17% between 2000 and 2022. In a simple comparison against inflation, almost every pay point, at every rank, is worth less now than it was when Police Scotland started. Growth in police pay has also lagged behind other public sector comparators. So don’t let anyone tell you there is no evidence to support asking for pay restoration. I expect the evidence will only grow over time.
Whatever success we achieve with the claim, its important to start talking about pay restoration now, so that it is on the agenda for next year’s Holyrood election.
Colleagues in England and Wales provide a useful benchmark in pay matters. This year, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has asked for an increase of 3.8% and staff associations for chief officers, Superintendents and Chief Superintendents have recommended a higher pay uplift of 4.8%. Our claim is somewhere in the middle of that, which I think is a reasonable place to be.
We are also asking for maternity and paternity leave at 26 weeks’ full pay, with the option to take weeks 21-31 at half pay plus half the value of statutory maternity pay (SMP).
We have consistently lagged behind the UK in our provision for maternity and paternity leave. When you consider our Policing Together initiative on equality and inclusion, we should be at least as good as the rest of the UK. This could have been fixed at any time with investment by the Scottish Government, so it is long overdue that it gets addressed.
Importantly for members, we’ve also asked for an increase to on-call payments for £60. This aligns to what colleagues in the Police Superintendents’ Association in England and Wales are asking for in their pay review. On-call remains one of the areas that generates the most frequent queries to the association and the current recompense is so far removed from the risk we manage and the duties we provide, for a purely voluntary duty. This needs to be addressed with a far payment that encourages members to particpate.
In addition, for any period of on-call beyond seven days, in any rolling six-week period, on-call payments should double to £120. We’re asking for that because that would represent a breach of our Workforce Agreement, which states that Superintendents and Chief Superintendents on call shouldn’t do more than seven days in a six-week period. We know, however, that that happens with far too much frequency.
So we want to create an incentive for Police Scotland to adhere to the Workforce Agreement and ensure that we are protecting the welfare of our members. If they’re being asked to do duties beyond what they should be doing, they need to be appropriately compensated, and it needs to be recognised by Police Scotland, so it can be fixed.
You may have heard commentary that Police Scotland will struggle to afford these changes, and perhaps references to the Public Sector Pay Policy (PSPP). But police officers are not employees, so they are not directly bound by that. And the NHS workforce in Scotland has already been made an offer on their pay by the Scottish Government, and that offer doesn’t conform to the public sector pay policy.
We know that where there is a political and organisational will, public sector pay policy does not limit the offer that can be made to any particular workforce. Nor does it mean that workforce reductions should be necessary, if proper investment is forthcoming. Let me be absolutely clear: the Chief Constable shouldn’t have to choose between a fair pay award and maintaining police officer numbers.
It is a really important time for policing in Scotland, and there needs to be investment in the profession. We need to show police officers that we value the role that they play in society, because that’s the only way we’re going to continue to attract candidates that meet those exceptionally high standards of professional behaviour that we set for officers.
A recent report suggests that a quarter of officers with under five years’ experience are considering leaving policing altogether, and many of them say that’s due to financial stress. If we keep going like this we’re going to lose the very people who should be the future of the service. The last thing we want is a flight of our top-calibre people as a result of a lack of investment in the service.
The Police Negotiating Board for Scotland will meet soon for discussion and negotiation of this year’s claim. The details of those negotiation are confidential, but I’ll continue to communicate what I can with our members.
On that note, we are running two online sessions next week for members, where they can ask questions and get more information about the claim. Those dates are:
Tuesday 29 April, 2.15pm
Friday 2 May, 10.15am