Select committee: Home Affairs Committee

Recommendation 100

Third Report - The Macpherson Report: Twenty-two years on Published 30 Jul 2021 Paragraph 621 Addressed to Home Office
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Based on the evidence we have received and the systemic problems we have identified, we recommend that in taking forward its Plan of Action on Inclusion and Race, the NPCC must focus on the following priorities: • Achieving a police workforce that is representative of the population by 2030, with specific objectives and plans at a force level to ensure recruitment in the current officer uplift and beyond is representative of the communities that individual forces serve (chapter four); • Gathering and publishing consistent and transparent data that allows the effects of police policies and use of powers to be properly scrutinised (chapters two, three, five, six and seven); • Reforming approaches taken to stop and search, including through improved training on conducting stop and searches, better understanding of ethnic disproportionalities and more effective review and community engagement on the use of stop and search (chapter six); • Independent monitoring and oversight at a national and community-level, combined with initiatives to rebuild confidence in police policies and use of police powers, and ensure new tools and technologies are not introduced before their likely impact has been properly examined (chapters six, seven and nine); • Maintaining an institutional focus on structural imbalances that lead to unequal outcomes for individuals of different ethnicities, including by the provision of training that goes beyond individual biases and focuses specifically on anti- racism and organisational culture (chapter nine) • An overriding commitment to the principle that disparities between different ethnic groups must be explained, or changes must be made to eliminate them (chapter nine).

From: Home Affairs Committee, Third Report - The Macpherson Report: Twenty-two years on (HC 139), paragraph 621, 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.

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