How Much Does A Police Recruit Earn?  Please Remind Me

Last updated on September 22nd, 2023 at 08:17 pm

Reading Time: 3 minutes

I’m a wee bit out of touch but the last I heard was that they were being paid about £22-£23k with a recommendation from the Tom and Theresa Show that they should be paid £19k.  Those figures might be slightly out of kilter but you’ll get the gist of it.

So you will be able to imagine how much my flabber was ghasted when I read in this morning’s online version of The Mail that one of our illustrious Chief Constables had received a £26,000 PAY RISE last year.

As bad as that might seem, that is only the tip of a gold-plated iceberg.

The £200,000 boss who makes you pay his daily lunch bill: Essex Police chief claimed £32,000 in ‘allowances’ for food, internet and phone bills

More than half of the £32k ‘Allowances’ is apparently accounted for by a mysterious ‘Chief Officers’ Allowance’.  This allowance apparently is provided to cover items of expenditure such as home internet and phone bills and contributions to his lunches, coffees and snacks, and no receipts are required to be provided.

Now call me old fashioned if you want but as a Police Pensioner I haven’t seen an increase in my Pension for ages.  Serving Front Line officers have received derisory pay rises packaged together with controversial increases in Pension contributions etc. The average Front Line Bobby is now paying more in contributions, retiring later, earning less and receiving less pension upon retirement.  This apparently is known as REFORM.  When applied to Chief Constables REFORM seems to involve awarding them HUGE pay rises.

Is it only me who thinks this must seem like a slap round the face with a dead cod to our fantastic Front Line officers, risking life and limb every day, not sitting in an ivory tower with quite possibly a protection officer for good measure.

As much as I detest the current and previous Prime Ministers, why does a Chief Constable warrant a higher salary than the PM?

But if you think that’s bad it doesn’t stop there;

Police chief’s 64 days off a year: Top officers paid more than the PM use loophole to choose how much holiday they get… then moan about cuts to budgets!

How much Annual Leave?  How much does the average Front Line PC get?  Can they actually take their alloted Annual Leave or are the government’s viscious cuts preventing offiicers from enjoying their summer holidays en famille?

Unbelievably, a handy loophole in police regulations states “all officers above the rank of chief superintendent with more than ten years’ experience are entitled to ‘not less than 48 days’ of holiday a year” – but can effectively decide how much holiday they want or need.  Well, that’s alright then.  Why hasn’t that part of Police Regs been reformed?

Home Secretary urges police forces to set out pay and perks of senior officers amid ‘allowances’ of up to £32,000 a year

Mind you, it could be worse.  Yes really, imagine how much worse it would be if they were being paid their Private Healthcare costs.

In some cases senior officers are having private medical insurance written into their contracts.

The practice appears contrary to government regulations which state that private medical treatments should be funded by the taxpayer only when an officer is injured in the line of duty.

Hardly any forces are declaring the spending in accounts, meaning it took months of Freedom of Information requests to uncover the full picture.

In 2014-15, at least 14 forces paid for private medical cover

A cynical person might think that these perks have all been awarded, or gone unchallenged, in order to keep Chief Officers ‘onside’.

Personally I’m appalled. Politics in Policing is bad enough with PCCs but this smacks of Home Office puppetry of the highest order. “Our reforms are NOT going to go down well with our Bobbies, how can we make things easier?”

As I said, a cynical person might think that this all stinks, but smelly or not, one thing is for certain, Chief Officers are NOT sharing our pain.

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4 thoughts on “How Much Does A Police Recruit Earn?  Please Remind Me”

  1. Gordon Williamson

    We are all in this together was a common phrase churned out by this Government and we all new it was a load of horse s**t.
    The majority of front line Police Officers also know that the majority of Senior Police Officers have little concern for front line officers and will certainly never stick their necks out to support real Police officers.
    They are far too concerned with looking after their own self interests this is no surprise, but it is an eye opener to see how much they are feathering the own nests!
    I guess we should not be that surprised, and the government and PCC’s will be happy enough to turn a blind eye as long as it keeps the Chief’s on side!
    Honesty, integrity, loyalty and honour are what the average front line officer lives by but the same cannot be said for most politicians and Chief Officers who spend too much time playing politics to understand the concept.
    Poor sods on the front line deserve so much better.

  2. No pension rise this year for me even though index linked and apparently none next year either because the rise on the index is too low.
    So why does the CC need a rise? And why the Allowance. Sounds like the MPs allowances which ordinary people have to pay for out of their salary.

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