JOHN REID is facing a mutiny from thousands of police officers over the Home Office’s decision to tear up a pay deal aimed at preventing unrest.

Officers cannot go on strike but they could work to rule, and rank-and-file leaders of more than 140,000 police are discussing details of what action could be taken.

Vital police work such as firearms duties and undercover operations are voluntary, and a decision by police officers to withdraw goodwill would have a serious impact on counterterrorist and gang-busting investigations. Officers could also refuse to use equipment that does not meet rigid health and safety requirements, thereby curtailing operations.

At the heart of the dispute is a claim for a 3 per cent rise based on the formula for police pay that has been used for the past 27 years.

So far, talks have yielded an offer of 2.2 per cent and the issue is going to arbitration. But police leaders believe that the Home Secretary, pressed by Gordon Brown and the Treasury, will override any decision in support of the formula.

The Home Office’s refusal to pay the 3 per cent has angered officers across all ranks. The leaders of almost 2,000 superintendents are joining junior officers at a series of mass meetings round the country in the next few weeks.

Chief constables, who negotiate separately, are also in dispute with the Home Office over their pay agreement.

Jan Berry, chairman of the Police Federation, which represents all junior and middle ranks, said: “Officers feel let down.” She gave warning that the Government could face the embarrassment of police demonstrations and the danger of an overtime ban, with officers working only during crises.

One chief constable told The Times that the Government runs the risk that its promise to maintain high police numbers will collapse. He said that forces would start losing officers and end up with falling numbers.

The police pay formula was established in the 1970s. It recognises that officers cannot take industrial action and compensates them by giving them a fair deal against other sectors. Under the formula they receive the average annual pay rise of a number of other workers.

The Home Office announced last year that it would like changes to the pay system but police leaders say that nothing happened until two months ago when officials refused to accept the 3 per cent award.

Chief Superintendent Philip Aspey, national secretary of the Police Superintendents’ Association, said: “Any attack on the indexation arrangements is a fundamental attack on the only established mechanism upon which we can rely to ensure that we are paid fairly in comparison to other workers.”

A Home Office spokesman confirmed that the dispute had gone to arbitration.

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