A policemen's lot.....

The Police have really got their dander up, haven't they? So have they been hard done to? Should we feel sorry for them? Well, yes and no. Pretty well everybody thinks they should be paid more than they are, and the police are no exception, but when you look at the whole package - particularly the pension scheme which is generous even by public sector standards - they don't do too badly. So what about this backdating, or rather this lack of backdating? Here I feel they have a valid point. The principle of pay rises taking effect from 1st September irrespective of when new rates are finally agreed has been so well established over so many, many years that individual officers have every right to assume that this arrangement would continue, and it may well be that some officers have made arrangements based on that assumption, and may now find themselves in the clag, financially speaking. If the Government were going to renege on such a long-standing arrangement, they should have made their position clear from the outset, instead of apparently accepting an award which they never had any intention of implementing.