Police performance-related pay urged

Left-wing think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said an officer's pay could even be based partly on the number of crimes he or she solved a year.

Proposals for the radical overhaul of police salaries come in the week 15,000 officers are due to stage a mass march in Westminster over pay.

The current pay system gives an annual pay increase of between 2% and 6% for the first 10 years of service, on top of the annually-agreed national pay rise.

An IPPR report argued that this system discouraged officers from developing specialist skills and failed to encourage those doing difficult or dangerous jobs such as emergency response.

The think-tank suggested a new scheme of pay bands for each rank with higher pay for those with specialist skills.

Spokesman Guy Lodge said: "We all know that the police do a difficult and challenging job, but no system of pay is fair that rewards people solely on the basis of time served rather than their ability to do the job effectively."

Mr Lodge warned, however, that too much concentration on detections or other statistics could run the risk of making the reforms too bureaucratic.

The report comes as thousands of off-duty officers from across Britain are due to march on Whitehall.

They will protest over Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's decision to stage a 2.5% pay rise, reducing the value of the rise to 1.9% for the year.