The Police Association’s work on a new remuneration framework is moving into its next phase, with the outcome expected to have a major bearing on bargaining for constabulary, managers and Police employee collective agreements in 2027.
“One of the most important things to come out of this year’s bargaining round is that the Remuneration Design Group (RDG) work is not just continuing on goodwill,” national secretary Erin Polaczuk says. “It is now written into the collective agreements, with formal commitments about what the parties have to do next.”
The agreed programme is based on the Korn Ferry report received by the RDG steering group. It requires Police and the association to test and validate the report’s recommendations – including financial modelling, quality assurance, risk management and cost-benefit analysis – before decisions are made on the proposed model.
The agreed features include a simpler step-based pay structure, with a maximum of nine steps and progression linked to tenure and experience.
“But this is about more than changing the number of steps in a pay scale,” Erin says, “it is about recognising the skills and experience people bring to policing, making sure the demands of different roles are properly valued, and creating clearer pathways for people to develop their careers.”
One of the most significant proposed changes is a P-Factor – a flat monetary addition to base salary, determined by role. It is intended to recognise the unique legal, physical and psychological demands of different policing roles that cannot be captured through job sizing alone.
The parties have also agreed to simplify allowances, with relevant skills, knowledge and experience reflected in job-sizing outcomes and incorporated into base salary where appropriate.
Importantly, the agreement states that no individual’s remuneration will be reduced when they transfer to the new model.
Commitment to cause
The RDG work is about more than redesigning a complicated pay structure. For the association, it is also an opportunity to address longstanding concerns about how Police roles are valued against comparable work in the wider labour market.
Remuneration analysis undertaken through the process shows that some Police positions may sit below broader market benchmarks. That strengthens the association’s argument that a redesigned framework will need investment if it is to deliver meaningful change.
Funding remains a significant hurdle. Implementing a redefined remuneration framework will depend on additional Budget appropriations over multiple collective agreement terms, Erin says.
“Crucially, Police and the association have committed to developing an investment strategy together and jointly taking it to Government. We know it will need investment. This gives us a formal commitment to make that case together, rather than leaving the association to argue for it on its own.”
The commitment does not guarantee funding or mean the new pay system is ready to be introduced, but it gives the parties a formal route to develop and present the case for investment, rather than leaving that step to be negotiated later.
She's a big job
A significant amount of detailed work remains.
The next phase covers the design and validation of the pay structure, role levelling, portfolios and specialist roles, Treasury investment and stakeholder engagement, systems and processes, and a qualifications framework.
The parties also need to determine how roles should be grouped into pay grades in a way that supports operational flexibility and fairly differentiates between different types of Police work. A revised job-sizing methodology is also to be developed.
The treatment of specialist and portfolio work is another important part of the programme. The parties need to determine how skills carried between roles will be recognised.
They must also work through a mechanism for hard-to-staff roles or workgroups and reassess Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) roles within the new reference levels. The parties have agreed to prioritise assessing the Detective Training programme required for CIB against an external qualifications framework. Once that work is complete, CIB roles will be reassessed against the reference levels.
A wider qualifications framework will take longer. It is intended to recognise the qualifications, training and skills people bring to policing and acquire during their careers.
The other workstreams will develop an implementation roadmap, including change management, governance arrangements, supporting tools and policy documentation.
The parties have committed to completing the outstanding matters, apart from the qualifications framework, within 12 months of ratification of the collective agreement. They have also committed to an agreed process flow from July 1, 2026, through to implementation, and to engaging Korn Ferry for further advice.
Boosting bargaining
Erin sees the RDG work as central to the association’s approach to the next bargaining rounds.
“Our intention is to engage early so that the new remuneration framework can become a major part of the next bargaining rounds. We don't want to get to the end of another collective agreement and find ourselves starting this work all over again,” Erin says.
“The intention is for the new framework to give us a common foundation across the constabulary, managers and Police employee agreements, while still recognising the different roles and demands within each group.”
For managers in particular, the RDG offers an opportunity to address concerns about the current performance-pay system and the way management roles are valued and rewarded.
The managers’ collective agreement now explicitly links its Grades 21-26 remuneration framework to the RDG process, with the aim of supporting alignment and integration across the different Police agreements.
There are still difficult decisions ahead, including the cost of the proposed changes, how roles are assessed and how the model can be introduced without disrupting operational requirements.
But Erin says the groundwork completed so far already provides a solid base for addressing long-standing pay issues and creating clearer career pathways across Police.