Met Police chief Cressida Dick calls for change to allow force to favour ethnic minority recruits
Fury as Met Police chief Cressida Dick calls for law change to allow positive discrimination in recruitment to favour ethnic minority candidates over white applicants
- Cressida Dick hopes the move will help officers gain the confidence of minorities
- Some 20,000 police officers need to be recruited across the UK by 2023
- Out of 7,800 complaints of racism against the Met 181 resulted in formal action
- Ms Dick wants legislation to allow force to recruit eight per cent of black officers
Metropolitan Police chief Dame Cressida Dick has sparked fury after lobbying the Government for a law change to allow positive discrimination to recruitment.
Dame Cressida wants the force to be able to favour ethnic minority candidates over equally qualified white candidates.
She is calling for the change after emphasising that police forces must reflect the community they serve.
But the move has provoked outrage among Tory MPs who branded the move ‘discrimination against white people’ and called on her to focus on recruiting ‘the best person for the job.’
The Met is currently made up of 18 per cent black and ethnic minority officers, but is aiming to increase this to 40 per cent – the same proportion of black and ethnic minorities in London.
Ms Dick’s push towards positive discrimination, reported by The Times, has also been backed by Neil Basu, the Met assistant commissioner and a vocal supporter of the force’s need for diversity.
Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said he is ‘more interested in officers who can enforce the law rather than meeting a quota’.
He added: ‘It’s discriminatory the other way. I’m very much of the opinion you have to have policeman who want the job. One volunteer is worth 10 pressed men as they say.
‘The whole thing is ridiculous. It’s not realistic and ultimately it’s policing by consent in this country, the force should reflect the society it is policing.’
Cressida Dick (pictured) hopes positive discrimination will help officers gain the confidence of the ethnically diverse community they serve
He accused Ms Dick of ‘heading off into dangerous territory’. He added: ‘She should make sure the Met Police is attractive to people from all parts of the community and ensure there is no racism in the force.’
Tory MP Bob Blackman told MailOnline positive discrimination was ‘completely wrong’ and the police should recruit the ‘best person for the job’.
‘You employ the best person for the job, and you encourage people from all walks of life to come forward.
‘But to then say you are going to positively discriminate for one set of people over another, you are saying to those people you are inferior. I regard that as an insult to people of different minority communities.’
‘It is demeaning. It says you are not good enough to get there on your own merits.’
He said the Met needed to encourage people from different communities but suggested that positive discrimination would ‘breed resentment’ among colleagues.
Police detain a man during a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Hyde Park, London, on June 12 last year
The director of a consultancy firm which helps companies improve diversity told MailOnline it was ‘the wrong move’.
He said more needs to be done to tackle the ‘root cause’ of a lack of confidence with black and ethnic minorities towards officers.
They added: ‘It would be sensible to focus on the root causes of institutional racism and the culture of the Met and the lack of confidence as opposed to legislation.
‘I think quotas are a sticking plaster and aren’t getting to the root cause. If the Government wants to amend the Equality Act it doesn’t change perceptions of equality within the force once officers have started working there.’
They warned the Met Police’s plan to bulk its number of black and ethnic minority officers could be seen as ‘lowering the bar’.
They said: ‘Cressida Dick is missing the point. What she needs to focus on is why ethnic minorities aren’t applying. Obviously there is an issue of trust around the culture of the Met.’
A Home office source said: ‘It’s fair to say positive discrimination is illegal for a reason.’
It comes in the wake of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, when thousands of people descended on Britain’s cities to campaign for equality following George Floyd’s murder by police office Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis. Pictured, a protest in Whitehall on June 7, 2020
They pointed out that the Home Secretary Priti Patel had clashed with Mr Basu previously on the issue and stressed that ‘lawful positive action’ could be taken but there is ‘no need for positive discrimination to increase the diversity of the police’.
Out of 7,800 complaints of racism against UK police forces – including some that referred to multiple officers – only 181 resulted in formal action, reported the I newspaper.
Data from 38 out of 45 police forces in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland showed just 5,555 out of 7,837 complaints were subject to further investigation, with no data shared for the remaining 2,282 complaints.
Some 20,000 officers will be recruited in England and Wales by 2023 and the Met Police alone wants to bring 11,000 more employees into various job roles between now and 2025.
It comes as London’s crime rate rises dramatically. Killings involving a blade in the capital increased from 67 in 2018 to 86 in 2019 – a rise of 28 per cent in 12 months.
Out of 20,000, just 9,000 officers have so far been recruited into roles in the UK. Of these, 10.6 per cent are from black and ethnic minorities.
Dame Cressida now wants more legal scope to allow the force to choose black and ethnic minority applicants over their white peers.
At the start of the year she revealed there were currently 32,300 officers in the Met and 1,300 more will be recruited this year. Some 3,000 are joining the force – but this includes those replacing officers who have left.
Laws currently in place already allow the force to favour black and ethnic minority applicants for individual roles – it is only larger recruitment drives that would be affected by the proposed changes.
Previous attempts to improve diversity have already failed with a considerable drop in candidates from black and ethnic minority backgrounds applying and then passing a competency-based questionnaire during a 2013 recruitment drive.
Morgan Lobb, CEO at Vercida, a consultant firm used by Met Police, told MailOnline: ‘We agree in principle but it would be good if the Met police continued the work they are doing to identify the issues that are limiting the amount of diverse applicants for positions at the Met.’
There is ‘entrenched racial bias in UK policing’, according to Habib Kadin, research and policy manager at StopWatch, a charity campaigning for fair and effective policing. Meanwhile, Niamh Eastwood, the executive director of drug law group Release, said the complaint system was ‘totally broken’ with a ‘severe lack of accountability’.
Choosing recruits based on their ethnic background is not favoured by the Government, according to The Times.
Dame Cressida stressed the quality of candidates would still be high, with recruits measured against strict standards set by the College of Policing – but ethnic minority candidates will be favoured where their qualities and skills match that of a white applicant.
It comes in the wake of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, when thousands of people descended on Britain’s cities to campaign for equality following George Floyd’s murder by police office Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis.
