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Police Race Action Plan
What is the National Plan?
Developed jointly by the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council, in collaboration with Black communities and partners such as the National Black Police Association and an independent scrutiny and oversight board, the Police Race Action Plan sets out changes across policing to improve outcomes for Black people who work with or interact with policing. Supported by all 43 Chief Constables in England and Wales, including our own Chief Constable, the plan aims to address disparities affecting Black communities and the lower levels of trust and confidence in policing.
What does this mean for North Yorkshire?
In North Yorkshire we acknowledge that our demographics differ from those of larger, more Metropolitan forces, and as such we have used the National Plan as a framework to create a plan bespoke to our needs here in North Yorkshire, focusing on all ethnic minority groups and individuals.
The plan is built around four key workstreams:
- Workstream 1: Represented– we will deliver a police service that is representative of our communities, and supports its ethnic minority staff, officers and volunteers.
- Workstream 2: Not over-policed– we will deliver a police service that is fair, respectful and equitable in its actions towards all communities.
- Workstream 3: Involved– we will deliver a police service that routinely involves marginalised or underrepresented people in its governance.
- Workstream 4: Protected- we will deliver a police service that protects ethnic minority people from crime and seeks justice for all victims.
What have we been doing?
Since the launch of the Plan, we have been embedding the Police Race Action Plan into every aspect of the organisation and the service we deliver, to ensure inclusivity, diversity and equity are at the heart of North Yorkshire Police's organisational culture and service delivery.
We have committed to 7 key commitments:
- To be an actively Anti-Racist organisation
- Adopt an ‘Explain or Reform’ approach
- Understand the trauma of and history of policing ethnic minority communities
- Improve support for ethnic minority victims of Crime
- Increase the involvement of ethnic minority people and communities in policing
- Increase support for ethnic minority staff and officers
- Develop a representative workforce and a culture of belonging
Our team was established in April 2024, being led by a Chief Inspector, and over the last 12 months have worked on all 4 workstreams.
- Researched, designed and procured a bespoke Workforce Development Program focussed on Cultural awareness for our entire workforce. To give everyone an understanding of black history, inter-generational trauma and the history of policing ethnic minority communities.
- We identified the need for a bespoke development program for our ethnically diverse female workforce. The program was designed and delivered ‘in-house’.
- We have identified a small cohort of ethnic minority officers and staff who are taking part in a bespoke development pilot program to provide tailored support enabling them to thrive.
- We have recruited 20 officers and staff from across the force to act as ‘Inclusion Influencers’. They are receiving a specialist intensive program of training to support our Organisation to embed the learning from the Workforce Development Program, drive upstanding and provide bespoke support.
- We have formalised our procedure to allow Independent Observers to observe all promotion processes and increased the participation by our Ethnic Minority staff ensuring fairness and transparency.
- We have done a thorough review of our Positive Action initiatives and created a new Positive Action strategy aligned to our new Diversity and Inclusion strategy. This focusses on increasing representation at all ranks and grades, ensuring equitable promotion and progression, and understanding and improving retention and attrition.
- We have reviewed our ethnic minority officer's workforce survey, to identify key themes which affect our diverse workforce and set a delivery plan to address them.
- We have worked with our Professional Standards Department to increase the focus of scrutiny panels on Race and ethnicity. This includes allowing individuals with ‘lived experience’ to provide insight in decision making and gravity assessment.
- We have formalised a meeting structure between our Chief Officer Team and our Race Network (NYPACE), to ensure Chief Officers hear directly from our workforce and our workforce have direct access to senior decision makers.
- We created a workforce focus group to inform our Op Hampshire policy and procedure changes in regard to officers who are assaulted, or face hate crime in the line of duty.
- We have reviewed our stop search guidance and procedure to ensure that our quality assurance and scrutiny processes are fair and equitable.
- We have reviewed our use of the Section 163 Road Traffic Act app and agreed a delivery plan to make using the app mandatory for officers conducting traffic stops. This allows us to effectively analyse the data for any disproportionality and ‘explain or reform’.
- We have begun a detailed review, by individual ward area, on our completed stop searches to identify areas of disproportionality and thus allowing us to ‘explain or reform’.
- Working with our partners in the Inclusivity and Public Confidence office at the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority (YNYCA) we have established an Independent Scrutiny and Oversight board (ISOB). The ISOB is made up of community members from a wide range of backgrounds who will provide ‘lived experience’, oversight and scrutiny of our delivery of the plan. ISOB members will be independently managed by the YNYCA.
- Working with our partners at Leaders Unlocked we have created a youth advisory group ‘Race Action Youth Voices’ to provide perspective from those most affected by police use of powers and the adultification of children.
- We have started work on our ‘Network of capability’. Working with partners and stakeholders, inside and outside of policing to seek best practice, scrutiny and ‘lived experience’
- We have created collaborations with our higher education establishments to increase our diverse talent pools in our mission to increase our workforce representation.
- We have added an experienced detective to our team to provide invaluable insight.
- We have begun to examine our missing from home data to understand if ethnic minority subjects are treated disproportionately.
- We are working with our hate crime team to understand the patterns, trends and reasons for hate crime in each ward area; identifying perpetrators and repeat victims and implementing early intervention and prevention measures.
Since the launch of the plan, we have engaged with our communities and workforce to shape our Diversity and Inclusion Strategy. The strategy links in with our Police Race Action Plan and our Positive Action Strategy to deliver our mission to be truly inclusive and anti-discriminatory.
We have worked with our partners in the YNYCA to create an Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board (ISOB), and our partners at Leaders Unlocked to create Race Action Youth Voices (RAYV) to hold us to account for delivery of the plan, and to provide ‘lived experience’ perspectives to inform our policing service.
But we realise there is more to do to achieve our goals of being a truly inclusive and actively anti-racist police force.
How can you support our Race Action Plan?
The support and guidance of our local communities is key to successfully embedding the plan into everything we do.
To get involved with our ISOB contact [email protected].
To have a discussion with our Police Race Action Plan team or if you would like to share your thoughts and ideas on how we can drive the plan forward together, please provide your feedback by email. The feedback you give will help us to shape the activities that form our plan. You can contact us on [email protected].