Durham & North Yorkshire Police Respond To Home Secretary
Durham's Police and Crime Commissioner Ron Hogg said:
“It is factually incorrect to say we have no black officers, as has been reported today.
And in fact we find it wholly disrespectful to our diverse police family for the Home Secretary to single out one ethnic group.
As it happens, just this morning we had an officer representing this particular ethnicity, which for some reason has been highlighted, dealing with a road traffic collision in the north of the county.
The way in which we record ethnicity is via a self-reporting system.
It is not a mandatory requirement and, despite requests to complete the information, we have no influence on how an individual may wish to identify themselves and neither would we want to mandate it.
We absolutely agree with the Home Secretary that it is vitally important that we represent the communities we serve.
We work closely with the Black and Asian Police Association and have a range of initiatives to actively promote diversity in the workplace.
And we are determined to work even harder to try and address the perceived under-representation of Black and Minority Ethnic officers and staff within the force.”
DC Waheed Mughal, Chair of Durham Black and Asian Police Association said:
“Theresa May is incorrect to say that Durham Constabulary does not have a single black officer.
I can confirm that the force do have a British Black Caribbean officer who serves in the North of the County as well as at least 19 other Black and Minority Ethnic officers.
Both the Chief Constable and Police and Crime Commissioner are fully supportive of the BAPA and are always receptive to ideas from members about how diversity in the workplace can be promoted and what can be done further to ensure that the Force is representative of their communities.
This will always be a challenge for a Force like Durham where the Black and Minority Ethnic population is relatively low in comparison to other forces."
North Yorkshires Deputy Chief Constable Tim Madgwick said:
“Past recruitment campaigns have targeted minority groups, including extending our reach to neighbouring counties. We have also developed an action plan with the College of Policing to address the recruitment of ethnic minority officers in the future. That said, we do have a number of Asian and mixed race officers from PC to Superintendent rank, and black, Asian, Chinese and mixed race police staff.
Recruitment in North Yorkshire has several challenges including its small black population, the geographical size of the county, meaning people from out of the area have to travel far to get to work, and the cost of housing stock. This has not been helped by the reduction in starting salary for new police officers.
Recruitment is the only tool to help us address under-representation, however, recruitment opportunities will now be very limited as we move into a future with even greater cuts to the policing budget.”
Julia Mulligan, Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire said:
“The Home Secretary is right that diversity in the police is a very serious issue, and one we have been aware of and trying to address for some time in North Yorkshire. The make-up of our county makes recruiting minorities particularly difficult, with less than 0.5% of our population being Black and less than 3.5% being BME. This means we have to look at a range of recruitment tactics, including for example, recruiting outside North Yorkshire to make sure we reach a diverse pool of potential candidates. Diversity will become increasingly important, but increasingly difficult, as police workforces shrink, but Chief Officers and I are committed to ensuring North Yorkshire Police is a diverse, welcoming organisation reflecting the best of British society.”