On the 4th March 2026, NCOA General Secretary Steve BOND and Chair Nick Edwards gave oral evidence to the NCA Remuneration Review Body. Specifically, Steve and Nick provided supplementary information in support of the recommendations they made in the NCOA written submission, which if adopted would:
- Tackle the cost-of-living pressures which NCOA members face, by awarding NCA officers appropriately for the roles they undertake in investigating serious and organised crime; as well as reducing the pay gap with the main comparator group in Policing.
- Reform the outdated non-consolidated allowances, some of which remain legacy allowances and have been in place unchanged since 2006. Reform of these allowances would enable them to be targeted towards hard to fill and hard to retain roles and the location of those roles.
- Prepare the NCA and its officers as it transitions into the National Police Service.
Steve and Nick acknowledged that the 2025 NCA Staff Survey results had recently been published and in line with results across the wider Civil Service, there had been another improvement on the NCA pay and benefit score. Without doubt above inflation pay awards do have a positive impact on how NCA officers consider how they are financially rewarded.
Although with substantive change on the way following the publication of the Home Office white paper: A new Model for Policing, the challenge for NCA Executive Leaders is to build the confidence of their staff, by way of example – only 33% of NCA Officers believed that NCA senior leaders have a clear vision for the future of the NCA.
Finally, whilst the NCOA did not produce a comprehensive set of pay reform recommendations, this did not signal that NCA pay reform is not needed, more that – like many members the NCOA are not confident that it will be delivered from the NCA engagement with HM Treasury. The differentiated pay mechanisms remain inherently unfair, at present only 1.9% of officers are at the standard pay range maximum whilst 71% of officers on the standard pay range remain trapped at the pay minimum with no mechanism to progress.
The NCOA written NCARRB submission remains available on 23.02.26 at www.ncoa.org.uk/news