Agenda item

Members will receive a report updating on Police recruitment and retention as well as the Force 1 in 4 commitment to be representative of the population of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

Members will be asked to comment on and note the contents of the report.

Councillor Cutkelvin left the meeting during this item.

Members received a report providing an update on recruitment and retention with details of the Force 1 in 4 commitments to be representative of the population of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

The PCC introduced the report providing background and context to the Force 1 in 4 commitments and continuing desire to be representative of the population of LLR together with an overview of data including examples of historical trends and question sets used to gauge socio-economic factors linked to recruitment.

Members queried the necessity of the socio-economic questions; how they affected or added to the recruitment process especially as positive discrimination was illegal and what steps were taken to ensure people less socially mobile were recruited. There was also some discomfort at the relevance of some of the questions i.e., eligibility for free school meals.

The PCC recognised that positive discrimination was illegal, and these questions were a standard format, as recommended from central government. The PCC also replied that it was important to encourage recruitment from areas that were underrepresented, acknowledging that some recruits might face hostility from their communities for joining the police force and the PCC was keen to overcome that. The PCC was also keen to make the force as broadly representative of the LLR population as a whole and did not want to be in a situation for example of having no working class police officers, or none from rural areas or none from the city centre, the force needed to be a balanced police force in terms of its demographic and geographic profile. The PCC explained that it was important to monitor where officers and staff were coming from and to capture data such as gender, ethnicity etc., and to analyse that and make efforts to reduce the barriers to people joining the police.

The Chief Constable advised that there was an emphasis within the national uplift programme to broaden representation across the force and it was noted that a third of the force were staff, so this was not just about police officer representation. Recruitment campaigns were run across the whole area rather than just an advert in a local paper and the numbers being recruited from different backgrounds had increased significantly over the past few years.

The PCC supported social mobility and whilst positive discrimination was illegal there were options to hold targeted recruitment events and to make sure that recruitment material was suitable, and that people involved in recruitment events/exercises could understand, empathise, and engage with people in communities that might otherwise be hard to reach.

It was queried whether there was any consideration to using young people in the recruitment process and the PCC agreed that there was a broader function for young people to be involved e.g., police cadets, not only to be recruited as potential future police officers but in projecting the police force positively out into communities.

Members briefly referred to graphs in appendix B depicting the change in demographic of police officers over the last 10 years and asked that future reports include more clarity around the breakdowns for that, since it was unclear what some of the headings meant e.g., gender/ethnicity/disability headings were not defined thereunder.

The Chair thanked officers for the report noting the continued improvement.

RESOLVED:

1.    That the contents of the report be noted,

2.      That a regular update on Recruitment and Retention shall continue to be brought to meetings of the panel.