Committee of Inquiry on the Police (Edmund-Davies Committee): Records

Minutes and papers of the Committee of Inquiry on the Police (Edmund-Davies Committee), together with evidence concerning police pay and negotiating machinery, and the constitution of their staff associations.

The report was published in three parts. The first and second, on negotiating machinery and pay, were published in July 1978 (Cmnd. 7283) and the third, on the structure and role of police staff associations, was published in July 1979 (Cmnd. 7633).

• Committee of Inquiry on the Police, 1977-1979
• Review Body on Police Negotiating Machinery, 1977-1977

Topics

Labour

Pay and pensions

The Review Body on Police Negotiating Machinery was set up in August 1977 under the chairmanship of the Right Honourable Lord Edmund-Davies PC to review the machinery for negotiating police pay and to examine the constitutions of the police staff associations. The Review Body was appointed jointly by the Secretaries of State for the Home Department, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

In December 1977 the Review Body's title was altered to the Committee of Inquiry on the Police, and its terms of reference were extended to include a study of the proper basis of police pay in the light of the particular stresses, dangers and responsibilities arising from the nature of police work.

The conclusion of the inquiry was that the police, holding as they do a unique position in the constitution of the country, must be subject to certain unique restrictions and limitations. The most important of these are those which prohibit a policeman joining a trade union or taking strike action.