Reward Management: Pay Report.
2021-22
Pay Report – Guidance
Group-work (N= 4 or 5) course paper (40%)
Note Peer Assessment will apply to 5% of this grade (see Appendix 1).
Pay Report of approx. 2,500 words, excluding references, tables and figures.
This years topic: Police Officers in England & Wales
Assignment:
Focusing on the profession of the Police in England & Wales, use the knowledge and understanding you have gained from this course to provide a critique of the Reward arrangements in place for that profession.
General Guidance:
What you should try to achieve in the pay report project:
· Display knowledge of the conceptual apparatus and theoretical debates surrounding reward management, as discussed in the Reward Management course.
· In your Pay Report, you should ensure that analyse the relationship between the business environment, strategy and systems of reward management operational in the area that you are investigating. In so doing, you should ensure that you critically discuss the transactional and relational aspects of reward under consideration. While you may also demonstrate an awareness of the importance of appropriate policies in areas outside the field of remuneration as means of enhancing performance, the focus of the report should be on Reward.
· The major focus of your Report should be a critical evaluation of the key issues in reward management as applicable to the situation under consideration. You should ensure that you identify the theoretical assumptions underlying the reward and performance initiatives under discussion.
· As an application of what you have learned in this course, you should ensure your Pay Report demonstrates an understanding that reward structures require to recognise labour market and equity constraints.
· You should also ensure that you discuss critically the efficacy of current managerial strategies in the area of pay and performance that you are investigating. In so doing, you should try to demonstrate that you appreciate the complexities and limitations involved in seeking to enhance performance, and to attract and retain talent via reward systems.
· It is important to highlight any divergence between policy and practice with respect to reward and performance management that you uncover in your analysis, and spell out any areas where the pursuit of managerial goals through reward and performance initiatives does not correspond in practice to the formal rationality of such initiatives. You should communicate these ideas and evaluate critically.
Specific Guidance:
Here are some tips from me as to what you might wish to look out for and where the best sources of information can be found. Remember, this is mainly about using the material, models, papers etc. that we have already covered in class to apply to a given situation (this year Police Officers in England and Wales).
· The Police force in England and Wales is currently undergoing a major overhaul of its reward arrangements. That makes this an exciting time to be undertaking this Pay Report.
· Be warned that the Police have a simply unbelievable tendency to talk in acronyms so PDR for Performance Development Review, PPS for Pay Progression Standard, NPCC for National Police Chiefs Council (senior management), TVP for Targeted Variable Pay, and so on (and on, and on, and on!). Fortunately, all reports contain a page or two (usually near the front) where all these acronyms are spelled out you will find this essential in reading the material.
· There are four (4) key dimensions involved in this reform:
1. Benchmarking
2. The P-factor
3. Pay Progression Standard (PPS)
4. Targeted Variable Pay (TVP)
· This is in addition to the reform of pension arrangements that took place in 2015, and you will be aware that pensions constitute a key component of reward (even though for reasons that are difficult to justify the Police Remuneration Review Body is not allowed to explicitly discuss pensions.
· The best statement of the overall vision for this reform can be found in section #6 of the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) Fifth Submission to the Police Remuneration Review Body, February 2019 pages 41-64.
https://www.npcc.police.uk/Publication/PRRB/NPPC%20Pay%20Repor t%20110219.pdf
Note that this is not the most recent version of this report but for your purposes this section is the most useful.
· The current pay scales for the Police can be found in the latest Police Remuneration Review Body Seventh Report England and Wales 2021pages 109-110, but there is much interesting comment here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-remuneration-review- body-report-2021-england-and-wales
· The Seventh Submission to the Police Remuneration Review Body, National Police Chiefs Council, 29 January 2021 is also interesting:
