Ethnicity monitoring and terminology

Report: 08
Date: 10 January 2005
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report provides details of how Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) staff record and monitor ethnicity of people by asking for their Self-Defined ethnicity and visual assessment by the officers. The report also provides explanation regarding the use of ethnicity related terminology to describe the public and MPS staff.

A. Recommendations

That members consider the contents of this report.

B. Supporting information

1. Q: ‘ACPO guidance on ethnicity monitoring made clear that all police services must use the Census 2001 16+1 categories from April 2003. However, a number of reports to MPA committees have continued to reference the IC 1-6 categories, which reflect an officer’s view of an individual’s ethnicity, as opposed to the individual’s self-definition.’

2. Recommendation 61 of the Stephen Lawrence report stated, “That the Home Secretary, in consultation with police services, should ensure that a record is made by police officers of all stops and searches made under any legislative provision. Non-statutory or so-called “voluntary” stops must also be recorded. The record to include the reason to stop, the outcome, and the self-defined ethnic identity of the person stopped. A copy of the record shall be given to the person stopped”

3. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) published a “Guide to Self-Defined Ethnicity (SDE) and Descriptive Monitoring” in March 2002. This document was produced with the Home Office guidance to ensure consistency across the police services and other criminal justice agencies. The guide explains that the police service has recorded details of people’s identity for many years in the course of detection and prevention of crime. This has taken the form of visual appearance as perceived by police officers, and is essential in this form for rapid identification and rapid transmission by communication systems.

4. Self-defined ethnicity does not relate to visible appearance but to a person’s self-image in relation to his or her own cultural origins. The police officer must record the SDE category chosen by the person concerned, even if the category chosen is clearly at odds with the officer’s visual assessment.

5. The ACPO guide clarifies that the collection of information on SDE will be in addition to the continuing need to collect the existing information on racial description derived from the Phoenix 6+1 categories (attached at Appendix 2), in order to maintain national identification systems. Officers are required to request SDE information; the giving of such information is entirely voluntary. In dealing with the public there may be occasions when it will be difficult to obtain the SDE classification, the officer may have recorded the visual assessment using the 6+1 classification but may not have the SDE of a person because:

• Officer’s presence is urgently required elsewhere
• Situation involves public disorder
• Person did not understand what is required
• Person declined to define their ethnicity.

The Home Office requires the Police Service to provide Section 95 data in both SDE and Officer’s Visual assessment forms.

6. Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has followed the ACPO guidance and Self-Defined Ethnicity (SDE) is recorded when the police deal with the following:

• Stops/Searches.
• Arrests.
• Cautions, Reprimands and Final Warnings.
• Issue of HORT(1).
• Issue of Vehicle Defect Rectification Scheme notices.
• Issue of Endorseable Fixed Penalty Notices (those issued personally to individuals).
• Requirements to provide a specimen of breath under Section 6 RTA 1988 (this is to include negative breath tests).
• Issue of Fixed Penalty Notices for public order offences (when implemented).
• Police complaints.
• Police personnel.
• Deaths in police custody.
• Homicides.

In addition to the Home Office and ACPO guidance MPS also records SDE for the victims and witnesses of crimes.

7. The following Information Technology systems record self-defined ethnicity using the 16+1 categories (attached at Appendix 1):

• MetHR
• CRIS (Crime Recording Information System)
• Stops Database
• Custody System
• Charge and Summons
• CDS Complaints system
• CO51 Vehicle Procedures Fixed Penalty system

8. The following forms were amended to record a person’s Self-defined ethnicity using the 16+1 categories:

It is therefore quite correct to continue to use the visual assessment 6+1 classification determined by the officers and the self-defined ethnicity using the 16+1 classification. It is not possible to back convert police visual assessment 6+1 code data into the 16+1 format. MPS cannot change the National Forms and IT systems, for example Police National Computer without the agreement of other Police Services and the Home Office.

9. Q: Which ethnicity monitoring classification system is used for victims, witnesses and defendants at a borough level? What do IT systems used by boroughs collect?

10. Q: Which ethnicity monitoring classification system is used for victims, witnesses and defendants by pan-London operational directorates?

11. MPS Police Officers and Staff, whether posted to a Borough or a pan-London operational directorate, will collect both 6+1 and 16+1 ethnicity monitoring classification system for victims, witnesses and defendants. The Crime Reporting Information System (CRIS), which is an MPS IT database system, records both SDE and visual assessments for the victims and witnesses of crime.

12. The MG forms that are used to prepare a case file for the case progression through the Criminal Justice System are National forms and the MPS is unable to change these forms without the agreement of other police services across the country. As all police services record SDE for the defendants, MG forms were amended to record SDE as well as the 6+1 visual assessment of the defendant. However, as the other forces have not followed the MPS in recording SDE of victims and witnesses, the MG forms which records victims and witness details were not amended and there is no field to record SDE of a person. Therefore when the case file is sent to the Crown Prosecution Service it has the SDE and visual assessment of the defendant, however it only has the visual assessment for the victim and the witness.

13. Q: Which ethnicity monitoring classifications system is used by performance management functions?

14. MPS provides both SDE and visual assessment classification data to the Home Office under Section 95. Where available both sets of data are used for analysis. It is not possible to rely on SDE data alone for analysis because if there are significant number of people who have either refused or were unable to self-define their ethnicity, it may not be possible to carry out meaningful analysis.

15. Q: What progress has the organisation made to ensure that all aspects of its business capture ethnicity data according to the Census 2001 16+1 categories?

16. MPS has followed the ACPO and Home Office guidance and has recorded SDE classification data for the activities listed in the document since its introduction in April 2003. As the activities listed above cover a major part of the police/public interactions and there has not been a demand to expand the list of activities, at the present time, there is no plan to extend the recording of SDE for all aspects of its business. Work is now underway to identify other activities, forms and databases, including the resulting cost of the changes whereby SDE could be recorded.

17. Q: What is the history behind the use of “VEM”? Can the MPS move away from the use of this classification system and, if not, why not?

18. The MPS position on terminology is that we should avoid broad generic categorisations and deal with people according to their specific needs. We hope we have moved on from the days when the service had a ‘them and us’ attitude towards communities, and officers routinely referred to non-whites of any variety as ‘ethnics’. The issue for the organisation is the eradication of unnecessary generic terminology, because it encourages unnecessary stereotyping

19. The term ‘Visible Ethnic Minority’ (VEM) used until recently in police workforce reports originates from police negotiations with the Home Office, when targets were set for overall workforce proportions in the late 1990s. At that time, the focus was understandably on visible representation. This term persists, but our view is that it is no longer appropriate. The demography of London is too subtle for this. For instance, London’s’ population has included a large number of white Irish for over a century, and now includes white groups from many parts of the world.

20. We are therefore moving towards workforce figures that recognise all minority ethnic groups that are not White-British as being representative in achieving a workforce that reflects Londoners according to their Self-Defined Ethnicity.

21. The term ‘Black and Minority Ethnic’ (BME) has emerged in some quarters in recent times and is used by the GLA. The MPS has difficulty on a number of levels with any term that appears to give prominence to one group.

22. The generic term ‘Minority Ethnic’ is emerging amongst many staff groups including a number of the staff support associations as the preferred alternative to VEM.

23. With our commitment under the recommendations of the ‘Equalities for All’ Best Value Review to the six GLA categories for service delivery, the generic term we would suggest is ‘Minority Group(s)’. The strength of this term is that it creates no particular group prominence, is inclusive of the majority of Londoners (over 80% are in one or more groups, and all will be in one group at some stage of their lives) and allows individuals to be members of different minorities. MPS will need agreement from the Home Office for the alternative term and just as importantly a change in the counting rules to include the non-White British categories.

C. Race and equality impact

There is a lack of trust and confidence in the criminal justice system, particularly among minority ethnic communities. Recording of Self-defined ethnicity provides the opportunity for the person concerned to self-define himself or herself according to how they see themselves rather than the visual assessment made by the Police Officer. The data in the 16 categories will assist the MPS to monitor the treatment of different ethnic groups in order to improve the service we provide. Involvement of our external partners in the implementation and monitoring would ensure increase in trust and confidence in policing particularly amongst minority ethnic communities.

D. Financial implications

1. For the MPS to capture ethnicity data according to the Census 2001 16+1 categories for all aspects of its business would involve significant financial cost. The main areas for expenditure are:

• Training,
• Publicity,
• Redesigning/Printing Paper Forms
• Changes to IT databases.

2. Training will involve extraction from normal duty and is not likely to incur additional cost. The most expensive part of the project would be the changes to the IT databases; the approximate cost for each database is around £50,000. Whilst it is not possible to calculate the exact cost, it is certain to run into several hundreds of thousands of pounds.

E. Background papers

• ACPO Guide to Self-Defined Ethnicity (SDE) and Descriptive Monitoring (A copy will be available at the MPA Library for ease of reference).

F. Contact details

Report author: Chief Inspector Richard Varley, DCC4

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Appendix 1: Self Defined Ethnicity (SDE) Code – 16+1

Asian or Asian British

• A1 Indian
• A2 Pakistani
• A3 Bangladeshi
• A9 Any other Asian background

Black or Black British

• B1 Caribbean
• B2 African
• B9 Any other Black background

Mixed

• M1 White & Black Caribbean
• M2 White & Black African
• M3 White & Asian
• M9 Any other Mixed background

Chinese or other ethnic group

• O1 Chinese
• O9 Any other ethnic group

White

• W1 British
• W2 Irish
• W9 Any other White background

Appendix 2: Identity Code (IC) – Officers Perceived Ethnicity Code

Existing Codes used Nationally by Police Services

• 1 White skinned European
• 2 Dark skinned European
• 3 African – Caribbean
• 4 Asian/Pakistani
• 5 Chinese/Japanese
• 6 Arabian/Egyptian
• 9 Not recorded/unknown

Proposed Codes awaiting Home Office approval

• 1 White – North European
• 2 White – South European
• 3 Black
• 4 Asian
• 5 Chinese, Japanese, or other South East Asian
• 6 Arabic or North African
• 0 Unknown

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