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About the Metropolitan Police Federation
The Metropolitan Police Federation exists not only to promote the welfare of its members but also to help ensure that the Metropolitan Police Service operates to the highest professional standards and that it is fully accountable.
The Federation therefore scrutinizes Service policy on a wide range of activities, from the police use of firearms to officer training and uses its expertise to advise and help the Service to continuously raise standards in all its operations.
It comprises three autonomous branch boards representing constables, sergeants and inspecting ranks (inspectors and chief inspectors) respectively, each of which has its own executive committee.
Together, the three Executives form the Joint Executive Committee, which acts as the Metropolitan Police Federation.
The Metropolitan Federation is affiliated to the Police Federation of England and Wales, which was established by the Police Act of 1919.
The Act was passed in response to a strike by officers over pay - which they won - and it forbade the police ever again to withdraw their labour or for officers to join a trade union (which, legally, the Federation is not).
Over the ensuing years, the Federation has faced Government hostility and had to fight difficult campaigns to ensure fairness for its members.
In 1931, the Government proposed pay cuts throughout the public sector. So strong was the Federation's opposition that the Home Secretary banned it from holding open meetings (i.e. mass meetings). The prohibition was not lifted until 1942.
The Federation also had a strained relationship with the wartime Home Secretary Herbert Morrison who, in 1944, summoned the whole of its governing Joint Central Committee to the Home Office where he told them that they must justify his decisions to the membership and not continue to press claims after he had ruled against them.
His action typified the disdain that various governments have over the years demonstrated towards the Police Service and the Federation, resulting in hostility to, and even victimisation of, Federation leaders.
After the War, many officers who had joined the armed services declined to rejoin their forces and recruitment proved extremely difficult.
Morale was very low and police pay was far behind that of other workers.
A government inquiry in 1949 proposed an increase in pay and, crucially, recommended that for the first time the Federation could collect voluntary subscriptions from its membership.
These subscriptions, which began in 1955, formed what is known as the Voluntary Fund and gave the Federation vital financial muscle in its campaigns on behalf of officers.
In 1960, a Royal Commission recommended a substantial increase in police pay and in 1971, the Federation secured the largest negotiated police pay settlement ever. But by 1976, pay was again lagging far behind that of other sectors.
It was so low, in fact, that the press found some officers on supplementary benefit.
Pay talks broke down and the Federation balloted its members on the question of the right to strike, producing an overwhelming majority in favour.
The Government announced an independent inquiry into police pay to be headed by Lord Edmund-Davies which reported in 1978 and recommended a 45 per cent pay increase, part of which was compensation for officers' lack of the right to strike.
Edmund-Davies also recommended that police pay rises be liked to the national average.
The Government accepted the inquiry's findings.
In 1992, the then Home Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, announced an inquiry into police responsibilities and rewards under Sir Patrick Sheehy, who was chairman of BAT Industries.
The Sheehy report was published the following year.
It recommended the introduction of performance-related pay, short-term contracts, a 40-year pension scheme for new entrants or officers accepting promotion (instead of the existing 30-year scheme) and changes to the method of upgrading pay.
The Federation rejected the report and hired a public relations company to mount a campaign against it.
An open meeting was held at Wembley Arena which was attended by 23,000 officers who heard Federation leaders, along with the Superintendents' Association, a chief constable and leading politicians bitterly criticise the report.
Michael Howard, who succeeded Kennth Clarke as Home Secretary, rejected most of the Sheehy recommendations, although he altered the pay upgrading formula so that police pay would be liked to private sector non-manual pay settlements.
Since then, the Federation has fought - and continues to fight - to improvements in all aspects of officers' welfare.
