Police: Recruitment

(asked on 1st December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will bring forward legislative proposals for police officer recruitment to maximise the number of black recruits.


Answered by
Kit Malthouse Portrait
Kit Malthouse
This question was answered on 9th December 2020

Police forces that reflect the communities they serve are crucial to tackling crime and maintaining public trust and confidence in a modern diverse society. While the police workforce is more representative in terms of gender and ethnicity than it has ever been, there is still much more to be done.

We have been clear that the uplift in officers is a once in generation opportunity to improve diversity. The Equality Act 2010 includes positive action provisions to enable employers to address identified under-representation of protected groups in the workplace, such as black officers in the police, as well as Asian and other minority ethnic officers. There is much greater scope than has been used so far for the police to use the positive action provisions of equalities legislation to improve recruitment and progression of officers from under-represented groups.

Some forces have made significant improvements in the rate of black, Asian and minority ethnic joiners through successful positive action measures. The relative rates of representation vary from force to force. However, we are clear that every force should be striving to become representative of the communities it serves. Information is available on police.uk that shows the ethnicity and gender representation for each police force compared to local force area populations. This allows the public to hold forces to account.

There is already work in train across the sector to support forces in doing this. The College of Policing has delivered a major programme of work to support forces in their efforts to address under-representation in the recruitment, retention and progression of officers and has published advice on the lawful use of positive action to address under-representation in policing at all levels. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has also published a workforce representation toolkit which includes practical actions forces can take to increase the recruitment, retention and progression of officers from under-represented groups in policing

The Government has also supported innovative schemes, such as Police Now, which are making the police workforce more diverse than ever before; showing that we can attract the brightest and best into policing, whilst introducing new perspectives from some of the country’s most challenging neighbourhoods.

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