Gloucestershire Police told they must do more to promote diversity

A recent photo was released of Gloucestershire Police's biggest ever passing out parade in which all 27 recruits were white

Equality campaigners have said Gloucestershire Police must do more to promote diversity in its workforce.

It comes after a photo was released of the latest group of 27 new recruits, who were all white.

Gloucestershire Police's Community Legitimacy Panel chair, Teddy Burton, said the image did not send the message he believed the force would want.

Police and Crime Commissioner Chris Nelson said he accepted more needs to be done to increase diversity.

Mr Burton said: "I am aware that the Better Together team are making efforts to recruit from diverse backgrounds...but when we look at this image it really doesn't send the message which the police are telling us, that they want the public to see us as an employer of choice and one representative of the communities it serves."

Chris Nelson said the force was getting better at recruiting from diverse backgrounds

Figures released by the force have revealed only 2.6% percent of the county's police officers identify as an ethnicity other than white.

This is below the overall figure for Gloucestershire of people identifying as non-white in the most recent census, which is 6.9%.

Mr Nelson tweeted the photo on the 12 February as the "biggest pass out parade ever".

"My first reaction was the uplifting feeling of so many people coming into the force, yes we didn't have any ethnic minority recruits as part of that cohort coming in, but we are doing it every other month and we are getting better," he said.

Khady Gueye (right) and her friend Eleni Eldridge-Tull organised a Black Lives Matter protest in Lydney

Local equality campaigners said the force must do more to ensure it is representative of the communities it serves.

Khady Gueye has been campaigning for equality in Gloucestershire and was one of those organising Black Lives Matter protests in the county in the summer of 2020.

"Multi-cultural Britain is a reality now. We are not living in a country that is purely white," she said.

"We have huge amounts of diversity, particularly across the county, and the point of the police force needing to be representative is the police force is there to serve those communities.

"You're not ever going to build relationships with the police force if those communities are looking at that structure and the people within it and not seeing themselves."

Sandra Samuel said that as a black woman she would like to see herself in "those pictures"

In 2020 the force announced a "Better Together" plan that promotes diversity.

Project manager Sandra Samuel said they were working with the community and individuals to give them confidence that policing could be for them, if they chose it.

"When we go out to recruit, we reassure them 'come on look at me, let's support you, let's use positive action'," she said.

"What we try and say is... 'if you're not in it, how can you change it?'"

'Look inwards'

But Mr Burton said the problem went beyond external recruitment.

"Much of this has to start internally," he said.

"One of the things that needs to be addressed is to ensure the constabulary itself is looking also inward to ensure there is a welcoming culture within, so people can see a clear pathway to progression."

Gloucestershire Police said 9.7% of all its officers had not declared an ethnicity, so the actual number of non-white officers would be higher than 2.6%

It added: "Over 6% of applicants for police officer roles in the last recruitment window identified as an ethnicity other than white, which is much closer to the Gloucestershire non-white population figure of 6.9%."