POLICE officers from Tavistock met with West Devon and Torridge MP Geoffrey Cox at Westminster last week, to discuss the police pay settlement for this year. An independent tribunal recommended a 2.5% increase from the usual date of September 1 but its commencement was delayed until December — reducing the value of the increase to 1.9%. Thousands of off duty police officers from across the country, and some 300 hundred from Devon converged on the Houses of Parliament to lobby MPs and protest. It was the first time since the system was set up in the 1970s that a government has declined to follow the pay tribunal's recommendation for police officers who are legally unable to strike. The move is opposed by the Association of Chief Police Officers and by police authorities, who have budgeted to pay the award in full. Mr Cox said: 'The police pay formula was a vital part of the covenant between the police and successive governments that was intended to ensure that officers would never feel they had to resort to action of this kind.'
