Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of reductions in the workforce of police forces, what steps they are taking to recruit more police officers and support staff from ethnic minority communities.

It is vital that the police reflect the communities they serve and I am determined to improve Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) representation in all 43 forces in England and Wales.

A number of police forces are currently recruiting officers. Decisions on when and how to recruit individuals are for the chief officer of a police force. It is important that they use equalities legislation, including positive action provisions, to make better progress in terms of recruitment of under-represented groups.

This Government's reforms have already made improvements, for example we set up the College of Policing which has embarked on a major programme of work, BME Progression 2018, looking at recruitment, retention and progression of black and minority ethnic officers, including the development of an evidence base of successful approaches used by forces.

As part of this programme the College recently published Positive Action Practical Advice, which advises forces on the use of lawful positive action to support the recruitment, retention and progression of officers from under-represented groups.

Also, under this Government innovative schemes such as Direct Entry and Police Now are increasing the number of BME recruits to the police, showing that you can achieve better representation while attracting the best and the brightest into policing.

Of the nine direct entry superintendents who began their superintendent training four (44%) are women and two (22%) are from an ethnic minority background. This is significantly more representative than the current make up of the superintendent rank which is comprised of 17% women and 4% from an ethnic minority background.

Police Now, an innovative graduate scheme implemented in the Metropolitan Police, received such a high calibre of applicants that it made provisional offers to 79 individuals, up from an anticipated 50. Of these, 16% per cent are from a BME background as compared to the Metropolitan Police’s current BME officer make up of 11%, and the national police BME proportion of 5.2%.

The Metropolitan Police also introduced its London residency criteria for recruits in August 2014 since when the proportion of BME applicants has risen to approximately 40%, a percentage which now matches the BME population of London.