Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what incentives her Department has put in place to increase the diversity of local police officers.

Policing remains an attractive and well-paid career, with a pension that is among the best available.

Every force should be striving to become representative of the communities it serves. We have been clear that the uplift in officers is a once in generation opportunity to improve diversity. We are supporting forces with a variety of attraction and recruitment strategies, whilst delivering a campaign that’s been designed to reach the widest and most diverse audience possible.

Some forces have made significant improvements in the rate of black, Asian and minority ethnic joiners through successful positive action measures. 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.

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.