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Government lifts 1% pay cap
The government has announced the ending of the 1% public sector pay cap for police and prison officers this year, and has also signalled the ending of the cap generally from next year.
Public sector pay was frozen for two years in 2010, except for those on less than £21,000 a year. And since 2013, rises have been capped at 1% — below the rate of inflation. The government has now said that prison officers will receive an average 1.7% rise, while police will get a 1% rise plus a 1% bonus for the year.
However, representatives of police and prison officers said the rises were not enough in the face of inflation running at 2.9%.
Steve Gillan, general secretary of the TUC-affiliated Prison Officers Association said a below-inflation rise was “not acceptable”. And TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady described the offer as “pathetic”.
The news came in the wake of the prospect of widespread industrial action over public sector pay, with Len McCluskey, general secretary of the country’s largest union Unite, warning that co-ordinated action from workers across the public sector was “very likely and very much on the cards”.
And McCluskey told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the union might consider breaking the law to go on strike. “If the government has pushed us outside the law, they will have to stand the consequences,” he said.