You may have read in the newspapers about a Police Arbitration Tribunal (PAT) decision which announced on Thursday 6th August referring to the “success” of the Police Federation sponsored staff side claim for an ‘On-call’ allowance. 

Whilst this is undoubtedly a major victory for the PFEW negotiators you really need to be fully cognisant of what the PAT claim was all about and how it affects the policy in place within the MPS before celebrating too hard.

The Staff side tabled a claim for an On-call allowance at PNB over 4 years ago.

The claim which effectively mirrored the MPS policy which we negotiated back in 2004, particularly in relation to it being voluntary and that no one can be forced to do On-call or treated adversely if they declined.  But the claim was that if someone wished to volunteer then they should receive a payment for it.

The claim eventually ended up at the PAT because agreement could not be reached with the Official side on the specific issue as to whether any allowance if paid would be the same for all no matter where you served in the country. The official side insisted that each police authority or force should have the ability to decide the amount they paid to their staff. Had their wish been upheld it was quite possible that there could even have been a disparity between what OCU’s paid here in the MPS.

The precise wording of the PAT ruling is as follows;

“The Tribunal is persuaded that an on-call allowance, determined at national level, should be introduced. The details as to the form of nationally determined recompense such as the level or levels, conditions, date of introduction, and any PNB framework of principles or guidance for the operation of on-call are to be subject to negotiation between the Sides.”

So the good news is at long last we have a decision that an On-Call allowance should be introduced and paid. 

But the bad news is:

1. All the other arrangements around it, such as how much, when it is introduced, when paid, and definition of On-call etc still need to be ironed out back at PNB. So if previous experience is anything to go by it will be a while yet before any payment is agreed or implemented.

2. No new money has been allocated to facilitate this new allowance!  It has always been the official side’s stance that no new money would be made available and I think it highly unlikely that they will change from that.  So the money for the new On-Call allowance will have to come from the existing pay budget which means someone will lose out somewhere! And

3.Of course as we all know from previous experience the PAT decision is not legally binding on the Home Secretary so this might all change again!

So as things stand there is NO CHANGE to our stance in respect of On-Call. It is outside of regulations and you cannot be forced to do it and until agreement is reached on the detail you will not be paid for doing it.

One final comment about this ruling – if, as and when the allowance is agreed we must never allow the Service to use its existence to legitimise or otherwise support the placing of officer’s On-Call against their free will.

The recent revelation in the press about officers from the federated ranks being paid in excess of £100,000 per annum is proof if ever it were needed that the Service would rather take the easy short term solution and spend their way out of the trouble of not having enough staff in the right places rather than tackle the underlying long term resilience issues and by so doing paying scant regard to the welfare of the affected individual.

If ever we think it’s acceptable for a manager to say ‘its okay to put someone On-call because we pay them for doing it’ we really would have taken a huge backward step in protecting the welfare of our members.