A Christmas and New Year message from Greater Manchester Police Federation Chair Mike Peake

When you look back, 2024 became a year of shrinking budgets resulting in police officers in GMP having to work harder as the force finds itself in the position of rethinking its plans to invest in the services it provides to the public.

Despite HMICFRS publishing the fact that GMP has improved greatly, I have concerns around how this can continue when the cupboards start to become bare.

The best laid plans can only be realised if the Government assign the required funding to GMP.

Whilst on a lesser scale than the previous year we continued to see new recruits coming through the door, but over 33 per cent of student officers left GMP as the stark realisation of how hard being a police officer in the current climate sunk in.

The Government announced a 4.75% police pay rise that took effect on 1st September, but much more needs to be done before police officers in GMP are recognised for the often-dangerous work that they do.

In the summer of 2024 PFEW carried out an industrial rights poll with over 50,000 police officers responding resulting in 97.7 per cent agreeing to PFEW negotiating the collective bargaining framework with the Government.

This strong mandate from those who engaged set PFEW up to negotiate with the government a fair and binding pay arbitration mechanism.

PFEW also instructed an independent root and branch review, with the intention of identifying areas of improvement. I am hopeful that this process will make some good recommendations on how the organisation can better represent its members.

We as your local Federation have continued to represent your views during regular dialogue with the force, and we are confident that GMP has a force leadership team that are very much willing to listen and want to engage with us.

Christmas is an incredibly busy time for police officers, but I hope that many of you get the chance to spend some quality time with family and loved ones. Those of you who will be working shifts over the Christmas period protecting our communities I hope that you stay safe and are able to celebrate whenever you can.

I would like to take the opportunity to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.