We received a petition asking:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to consider the plight of Police Pensioners when making the Police Pay Award.”
Details of Petition:
“Police Officers pay a higher percentage of their salary than any other Publice Sector Employee in order to receive a decent Pension upon retirement. At present the annual increase in Police Pension is directly related to the Police Pay Award, but we do not receive anything like the same percentage, therefore on current form, our next increase will be derisery. It would appear that this Government has no respect for it’s Police Force, past or present.”
· Read the petition
· Petitions homepage
Read the Government’s response
It is not the case that the annual increase in police pension is directly related to the police pay award. The amount of a pension is, of course, based on an officer’s final pensionable pay, but once in payment a police pension is increased under the Pensions (Increase) Acts. The point at which pensions increase begins will depend upon an individual former officer’s age and the type of police pension he or she is receiving, but in general a police pension will be increased annually in line with increases in the Retail Price Index. The most recent increase across all public sector pension schemes, announced on 17 December 2007, was 3.9 per cent from 7 April 2008. This is wholly unrelated to the pay award.
Police officers do, as the e-petition suggests, pay a relatively high pension contribution rate (although not quite the highest in the public sector). The contribution rate reflects the quality of the benefits available under the police pension scheme, which are among the most generous of any public sector scheme. This rightly reflects the demands of police work and recognises the value of the work which police officers carry out.
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