Select committee: Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 71
Third Report - The Macpherson Report: Twenty-two years on
Published 30 Jul 2021
Paragraph 518
Addressed to Home Office
Home Affairs Committee The Macpherson Report: twenty-two years on All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We would like to see consistency in the quality and content of training delivered at a local and service wide level. To this end we recommend a comprehensive review and overhaul of training on racism, diversity and equality, led by the College of Policing and assisted by the Home Office. Its purpose should be to draw up clear national standards on anti-racist training for all police officers and staff. It should consider specifically how to involve local communities in drawing up training programmes and ways to draw on the experience of those who face the consequences of racism in the communities the police serve. It should include training to identify and question racial disparities within structures, policy and institutional culture, in addition to unconscious bias.
From: Home Affairs Committee, Third Report - The Macpherson Report: Twenty-two years on (HC 139), paragraph 518, 30 July 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 26 May 2022 (deadline 30 September 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's work and acknowledges that "there is more to be done" on trust and confidence in policing, while declining to set recruitment targets or establish a new Race Equality Commissioner.
- On recruitment, the Government does not agree that setting diversity recruitment targets "is the right lever", citing differing local populations, and says it believes the existing framework is "the most effective way" of driving change.
- On proposed changes to the Equality Act 2010, Ministers say "more evidence" of the benefit of the Metropolitan Police proposals would be required before a proposal to make temporary amendments "would be considered".
- On stop and search, it commits to a new framework for scrutinising use of police powers "by summer 2023". On the Committee's call for a new independent study, it says it wishes to allow Inclusive Britain actions to be implemented "before we consider further commissioning research".
- It does not consider a new Race Equality Commissioner for policing "necessary", pointing to existing oversight through the National Policing Board, HMICFRS and Police and Crime Commissioners.