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This page contains press release 57/04, in which the MPA is told that police diversity target for London are unlikely to be achieved.
Warning: This is archived material and may be out of date. The Metropolitan Police Authority has been replaced by the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPC).
See the MOPC website for further information.
Police diversity target for London unlikely to be achieved, Metropolitan Police Authority told
57/04
22 July 2004
A tough Home Office target to make the Metropolitan Police "truly representative of the community it serves" is unrealistic, the Metropolitan Police Authority has been told.
Martin Tiplady, the Met's director of human resources, told a meeting of the MPA's human resources committee that despite enormous and successful efforts by the Met to boost recruitment of police officers from visible ethnic minority (VEM) communities, the Home Office target of 25 percent representation by 2009 was not realistically achievable.
"The Metropolitan Police has worked incredibly hard to increase the numbers of VEM recruits and current levels are running higher than ever before," he said.
"But to achieve the Home Office target for VEM officers, it would mean that over the next five years our recruitment intakes would have to comprise of 68 percent VEM recruits, against the current target of 17 percent.
"We want to have a police service that is truly representative of the public and communities it serves."
Rachel Whittaker, chair of the MPA's human resources committee, said:
"We are all well aware that Londoners rightly expect their police service to be truly representative of all our diverse communities, and I know that the Met is as disappointed as we are that this important target may not be reached in the time allotted.
"We will continue to work with the Met and others to look at even more innovative ways to overcome the problems and achieve the target on time if at all possible, or ask the Home Office to set a more realistic deadline."
Jennette Arnold, the committee's deputy chair, said that the way in which positive action had been used to establish a representative police service for Northern Ireland might be used as a model for London.
"Let's not talk about what can't be done, but what can be done to meet this target," she said.
The desirability of legislation to enable positive action was referred to a future meeting of the full Metropolitan Police Authority for further consideration.
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