The Home Office today published a force-by-force overview of the proportion of BME and female officers in each of the 43 England and Wales police forces. The data is presented alongside total population statistics, allowing for an easy assessment by the public of how representative their force is in terms of ethnicity and gender.
The diversity profiles show that there is no police force in England and Wales that has a BME representation that matches its local demographic.According to self-declared data submitted by forces to the Home Office, four forces have no Black/Black British officers. There are no BME Chief Constables and female police officers make up 28.2% of all police officers yet are 51% of the total population.
While the most recent published police workforce data shows that the proportion of BME officers joining the force (8.8%) is higher than the proportion of current BME officers (5.5%), no force, including the Metropolitan Police, is representative of the communities they serve. Previously published data shows there are two Chief Officers who self-identify as BME in England and Wales, and eleven forces with no BME officer at Chief Inspector rank or above.
Home Secretary, Theresa May said, “Increasing diversity in our police forces is not an optional extra. It goes right to the heart of this country’s historic principle of policing by consent. We must ensure that the public have trust and confidence in the police, and that the police reflect the communities they serve. Incredibly, four forces do not employ any Black or Black British police officers at all, and female officers make up 28% of all police officers but 51% of the total population...This is simply not good enough. I hope these figures will provide chief constables with the information they need to identify areas for improvement and for the public and PCCs to hold them to account.”
