As I ultimately work for the government, when they announced massive public sector spending cuts, it was going to effect us. We had months of waiting around, trying to remain positive though occasionally giving in to the doom and gloom merchants, while we had to wait an see exactly how much of slice of the pie had been reduced by. Well in October, the Government announced a figure................sort of, and we are still waiting!!!
Some police forces took drastic action as soon as public sector cuts were announces, and as police staff are often the not so visible face of policing, they were in line for the majority of the cuts. For example, Durham Police sent out redundancy warning notices to ALL their police staff last July, at least three months before any kind of figure was announced. TVP chose to wait, more or less, until a figure had been announced, before announcing what is going to happen, and as of yet no large scale redundancies have happened. But what has happened is that they have looked at how we are paid, and changed it. The reason they have given is to make it fairer, but let's be realistic, it is cost cutting and it would be nice if they could just be honest!!
I, and a lot of other staff are paid as followed; basic salary (quite low compared to comparable private sector jobs) and shift allowance (to make up for the fact we cover shifts 24/7, 365 days a year), both of which are paid automatically each month. We then get what is called weekend enhancement - you work a weekend, you get extra again and this has to be claimed. This means that you only get your weekend enhancement when you actually work a weekend, so taking annual leave at a weekend (remember annual leave, statutory right etc, etc), actually costs you money. Also, the way the shift pattern falls that my team work, we have three weekends off in a row, meaning that your monthly salary can fluctuate by several hundred pounds.
Anyway, as part of the restructuring of our pay, our weekend allowance is now going to be paid automatically. Now we are all realistic enough to know that we will probably be losing a bit here, but in the interests of actually having the same pay on a monthly basis, we are happy with this. But as well as now paying our weekend allowance automatically, they have reviewed all the shift allowances as well, and as a result, everyone who is effected is getting a letter saying how much you are going to gain (not many people have had these) or how much you are going to lose (most people have had these). There were various meeting and emails sent round in November and December, explaining what was happening and we were told that we would get a letter explaining how we would be individually affected, and these were being sent out in December.
So, sure enough, we all got a letter, which arrived on Christmas Eve. So for the majority of staff who are actually seeing their pay cut, what a lovely Christmas present..............but at least they got their letter. All my team got was a letter stating that as of the 1st April 2011 our terms and conditions of employment would be changing (got to give us three months notice of that by law!), and we'll write to you in January with the exact details. Oh, and if you have any questions, please contact this person. WHAT A FARCE!!!!! It is now the 4th February 2011, and so far, still no letter. I haven't bothered to try an contact anyone, but colleagues who have, have had to resort to threatening to email the Chief Constable to actually get anyone to respond, and then they don't know the answers. Our poor supervisor, every time we see him, he has been met with a barrage of complaints about the lack of info, and give him his due, he has tried to get us answers, but even he is not having much luck.
The frustrating thing is that we just want to know. We know we won't be getting any pay rises for the next two years, so due to rising costs, this is a pay cut in real terms. But on top of this, is our pay going down, staying the same, or will we be some of the lucky few and it actually go up. At this rate, we might actually know by the 1st April, but I am not holding my breath!!!
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