Black people applying to police forces across England and Wales under a government recruitment drive had a significantly higher rejection rate than white counterparts, a new investigation has revealed.
An investigation by the Media Storm podcast acquired the data through freedom of information responses from 32 out of 43 police forces in England and Wales. In total, they reflect 181,175 applicants.
In 2019, the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, pledged to recruit 20,000 more police officers and in April this year Rishi Sunak announced the target had been hit.
Analysis by reporters for the podcast and Pete Jones, a psychologist who has consulted UK police forces on implicit bias in recruitment, found that black applicants to the “Uplift” drive had a pass rate of 7.3%, compared with 18.72% for white candidates. Asian applicants had a pass rate of 9.18% and mixed race candidates had a pass rate of 14.38%.
The team compared the number of applicants with the number of appointments to calculate the pass rates for each group, as well as their adverse impact ratios.
Jones said: “Police Uplift was a once in a generation opportunity for the police service to be representative of the communities it serves, and it has squandered it.
“We can keep on pointing fingers at communities, but at some point we have to turn the mirror on ourselves and say, well, perhaps it’s our systems that have done this.”
All 43 police forces were sent FoI requests; 34 responded. Two – Nottinghamshire and Wiltshire – said the information was not stored in a way to permit easy retrieval, the remaining nine police forces failed to respond within the statutory timescale.
Other findings include that, contrary to popular belief, minority ethnic groups are slightly more likely than white applicants to apply to be police officers.
In London’s two police forces, which have been widely criticised for institutional racism, white people fared 50% better than ethnic minorities during job selection.
The Metropolitan police noted that the pressure to meet the Uplift targets meant diversity rates suffered in a response to the podcast.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council said: “Much has been done by policing to address racism, and policing is more inclusive, more diverse and more reflective of our communities than we have ever been.
“Data, based on all 43 forces within England and Wales, shows an increase of 15.9% in ethnic minority and 19.3% in black candidates passing the assessment process since May 2020, ensuring we are now better able than ever to represent the communities we are serving. We also now have more women than ever before, with over 53,000 women nationally representing policing.
“There have been improvements in our overall ethnic minority recruitment. We have more black, ethnic minority and asian officers than ever before. We have worked with forces to build capability in outreach and encourage conversation with those who might have previously discounted policing.
“Improvements to vetting mean all new police officers are vetted to the highest standards and the Uplift programme team have supported forces in managing the increased vetting challenge as a result of additional recruitment. We need more officers but they must be the right people who meet our high standards.
“Every applicant undergoes a number of pre-employment checks including vetting, medical and fitness testing. From over 275,000 applicants, less than 47,000 were successful, which shows just how rigorous the recruitment process is and how focus has remained on standards and quality.”
