The Police Race Action Plan is a long term commitment by policing. The aspiration to deliver an anti-racist police service is not going anywhere and will remain a priority for policing nationally for years to come, because that is how long it will take to drive the systemic change we need across policing.

What is currently on the table is around what structure and central support the plan receives, whether that is funded by the government, policing or a combination of both. The central team's funding has been extended from the NPCC until the end of March 2026, while discussions are ongoing with government about the plan's long term structure and funding.

We have Assistant Chief Constable Jason Gwillim leading our work around transition, looking at several options for the future of the plan and how we can ensure that the plan is embedded into the DNA of policing over the longer term, using existing structures such as National Police Chiefs’ Council committees.

These discussions are ongoing and we will have clarity on these decisions in the coming months. Whatever the outcome of those discussions, people should be reassured that the Police Race Action Plan will remain a key focus for policing nationally, albeit with a shift in focus which puts the onus on delivery to local forces.

Declaring institutional racism is ultimately a decision for chief constables to make about their own respective forces and institutions. We have seen a number of chief constables come out and acknowledge institutional racism in the below forces.

• Avon and Somerset
• Bedfordshire
• Dorset
• Gloucestershire
• Police Scotland
• South Wales

Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, who chairs the National Police Chiefs’ Council and has overall responsibility for the Police Race Action Plan, has also acknowledged institutional racism.

A few years ago, it would have been unheard of for any chief to acknowledge institutional racism. We also have some chief constables who have not openly declared that their force is institutionally racist who are driving activity and changing operational practice that is contributing to developing an anti-racism ethos.

Plus we have really listened to our communities. Our team has sat in rooms across the country, with stakeholders working around the clock to tackle racism, from community leaders through to groups of young people, and heard consistently feedback from Black communities of the need to acknowledge institutional racism, in order for this plan to be viewed as credible.

Many see this as an elephant in the room that must be addressed before we can move forward. However, there is nuance to these conversations – we have heard other opinions where people say they don’t want to get into a debate about labels and definitions, and would rather police got on with the system change of reform.

Fundamentally, more and more chief constables are acknowledging that racism, discrimination and bias are systemic issues that need addressing. We encourage chief constables to speak with their own Black officers, staff and communities, analyse the data in their force around things like disproportionality in key areas like stop and search, and make their own conclusions.

The Police Anti-Racism Commitment attempts to more clearly define what anti-racism means in a policing context. However, we understand there will always be different opinions on terminology.

Policing is a large, complex organisation. There are 237,000 people employed across 43 police forces, without mentioning thousands of others who volunteer their time and support. Inevitably, among these there will be people who still question the need for the PRAP, as well as those who feel it is not doing enough and has made insufficient progress.

Our focus is on delivering actions and activity which makes the biggest difference possible and brings as many people with us as possible.

It is a shameful fact that Black officers and staff in policing continue to face racism, discrimination and bias, be this overt racism, unconscious bias or discrimination linked to structural issues in policing. It is of further regret that too many people have not had positive experiences during their time working on the plan.

This is why our programme director T/DAC Dr Alison Heydari has made creating a more supportive and inclusive culture in the team one of her key priorities since coming into post in August 2023. The plan looks very different now, with eight of our 10 most senior staff having joined during the 2024 calendar year, and we feel the plan is making progress in terms of both its delivery as well as its own culture. Our staff turnover and vacancy levels are much lower than they were previously, which hopefully reflects the improvements we have made in making the plan a better place to work.

However, we are not complacent and recognise the need to deliver anti-racist practice in our team. We have made further enquiries into the issue of racism in the central team, and invited the national police chaplain and a further independent voice in to talk to our staff and act as an method for staff members to raise issues or concerns confidentially. We will continue to have these discussions in the team and ensure that everyone working on the plan feels supported and empowered to deliver an anti-racism programme they can be proud of.

Ensuring there is leadership buy-in and support for the Police Race Action Plan at a local level, with clear governance and accountability, is something we have moved to address more proactively. There is a network of influence and accountability we are looking to put in place to ensure the plan remains a key area of focus and at the forefront of people’s minds to deliver in forces.

The Police Race Action Plan is the only national police programme with a standing agenda item at Chief Constables’ Council. This means that at every meeting chief constables are provided with an update on progress, can ask questions of the programme director and we can ask for help with our key priorities too. Whenever we carry out visits to forces we will meet with and discuss issues of governance and accountability with senior officers.

Speaking with PCCs is another area where we have increased our activity, especially in the wake of the recent PCC elections. This summer the plan addressed the general meeting of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) for the first time, while we have provided individual briefings to several PCCs across the country. We know of at least one example where the plan has been put into a PCC’s emerging police and crime plan as a result of this engagement.

Our discussions are ongoing with HMICFRS too. Its recent state of policing report specifically highlighted and welcomed the Police Race Action Plan, while we are looking at various ways to align the work of the plan with HMICFRS inspections.

There is a further element we are exploring around accountability, which is using other agencies in the criminal justice system such as the Crown Prosecution Service. We recently undertook a significant programme of consultation and engagement, and a key theme to emerge from this work was an expectation on us to work with other agencies to tackle racism.

We have heard this feedback and have established a new disproportionality board with the Crown Prosecution Service. This and work with other agencies ensures there is a shared focus to drive improvements around race disparity and the issue remains at the forefront of senior leads' minds across the criminal justice system.

The proposed maturity matrix will also ensure transparency and accountability for the plan. Our aim is to publish the maturity matrix assessments and the data that underpins them both internally and externally so the data can be scrutinised, as well as having them subject to internal moderation and reality testing, peer review by other forces, as well as being consulted on with local Black communities.

We are also working much more closely with the new government, including the Home Office and the Cabinet Office on its forthcoming work on race equality. This increased focus on the plan from government is another way to ensure we are continuing to drive improvements.

While there is no silver bullet, we hope this combination of oversight and engagement will ensure that the plan remains a major priority and demands that forces continue to take action towards delivering an anti-racist police service.

Black officers have been involved in this work for years, with some being the biggest advocates for change and for the plan. Those of Black heritage include our programme director and three of our four workstream coordinators. Three current and former Black officers and staff who worked on the plan have been promoted during their time with us.

Many of the leads for the plan in individual forces are also Black officers and staff, while the Our Black Workforce survey gained insights from around 1,600 officers and staff from Black backgrounds currently working in policing.

More widely, new independent groups and panels have been formed across both local and national policing during the plan to advise and guide policing on its delivery as well as wider issues, ensuring the views and advice of Black communities is placed at the heart of the plan’s progress at all levels.

We recognise the huge value of lived experience and would always welcome applications from and involvement in the plan from Black communities. But we also recognise the passion and skills that White colleagues and allies bring to the plan too.

It is vitally important to us that this is not just viewed as a problem for Black people which Black people should solve. The PRAP is something everyone in policing can play a part in delivering. Allyship is critical to support development and also ensures that those in senior positions are taking ownership, but also listening to lived experiences without adding a burden or trauma to those in policing.

Acknowledging policing’s previous poor engagement with and treatment of Black communities is a central component of the plan. The overt racism many of the Windrush generation experienced included policing. The Scarman report, following the 1981 riots across England’s major cities, identified the harmful impact of policing on Black Britain.

Stephen Lawrence’s murder in London in 1993 and the 1998 Stephen Lawrence Inquiry by Sir William Macpherson were watershed moments in facing up to racism in policing. Under this plan, we acknowledge this trauma, we have accepted that policing still contains racism, discrimination and bias, and have apologised for this shameful fact.

Moving forward, we are determined to equip every police officer and staff member with the tools and knowledge they need to be culturally competent, which includes acknowledging this generational trauma for Black communities with policing.

Training and education is being rolled out by police forces around the country to deliver greater understanding of the national and local history of policing Black communities. We want to give everyone in policing the confidence to openly discuss race and racism, a greater understanding of the historical relationships between policing and Black communities, as well as an appreciation of how their personal role and behaviours can improve trust and confidence within Black communities.

The plan is also exploring new methods of community engagement, based on the principles of restorative justice, which acknowledges generational trauma and aims to rebuild trust with Black communities.

Systemic, long term change is what our plan is determined to deliver. While the past few months has seen some promising signs of progress, changing the culture of policing is something that is going to take time. That is why it is important that we move the plan from something more focused on actions and activity through to something with longer term ambitions and commitments, with metrics to track our progress. We have consulted widely on our Anti-Racism Commitment and proposed maturity matrix, which will shift the plan onto that longer term, more performance based approach.

Putting in regular monitoring to facilitate and track culture change has been important. We have run the Our Black Workforce survey twice now, with 1,600 and 1,500 serving Black police officers and staff polled respectively over two pieces of fieldwork.

While some of the findings make for uncomfortable reading, this research gives us the baseline we need to track change and performance over several years. We are looking at options to more accurately measure the trust and confidence of Black communities in policing across the country too.

The College of Policing is leading on a pilot project to use behavioural science-based interventions to address racism, using learning from other culture change projects to combat misogyny and sexism. Other initiatives include putting guidance in place for police forces to publish their ethnicity pay gap and take steps to address it.

All of this is important, measurable work which lays the foundation to deliver cultural change in the longer term, which is what we must do to ensure that Black communities both in and outside policing feel the tangible benefit of the plan.

Intersectionality is another key theme from our recent round of consultation and engagement. Communities gave us clear feedback that it was vitally important for policing to consider the needs of Black people in a holistic way.

The plan already has a focus on intersectionality, particularly in workstream four around safety and victimisation. This involved working with national policing leads in areas such as hate crime, mental health and missing people to ensure the police response to these issues was properly tailored to respond to the needs of Black victims, working towards officers are equipped with the knowledge, understanding and awareness to deliver the most appropriate care.

In light of the feedback we have received, we have added further actions to address intersectionality. This includes a greater focus on the response to Black victims of violence against women and girls, as well as compiling evidence for a review of adultification bias, an issue where children, especially from ethnic minority groups, are not treated as children by the criminal justice system.

We have also introduced specific actions around the recruitment, retention and promotion of Black women within policing in workstream one of the plan, around culture and workforce.

This piece of work is at a very early stage of exploration and while this area will continue to evolve as the plan matures, we hope this demonstrates our commitment to intersectionality and ensuring that the needs of Black people who face further marginalisation have their needs addressed through the plan.

We fully accept and understand why Black communities are frustrated, fatigued and fed up with policing promising and failing to change. We also accept that despite some recent improvements, progress on this plan has been too slow.

However, this plan remains the first time that every chief constable has signed up to deliver a national plan to tackle racism and discrimination. It has been funded by policing over several years to drive improvements and has made some progress, as outlined in our recent progress report.

The plan remains a long term commitment for policing too, regardless of the structures and central support in place to drive it forward. Our view is that we want the best possible chance to continue with this progress, rather than restarting all over again.

A significant amount of work went into involving Black communities in the development of the Police Race Action Plan, while this engagement work continues. Twelve different organisations were consulted prior to the plan being published, including the Criminal Justice Alliance, The Runnymede Trust and National Black Police Association.

Since the plan launched we have held conversations with thousands of people about the plan, its work, what we want to achieve and how we can best do it. A public survey received more than 5,000 responses, of which 10 per cent were from Black or Black British or mixed Black heritage respondents. A separate survey has gleaned feedback from around 1,600 Black officers and staff currently working in policing, to get their invaluable views on our culture and what steps we can take to make policing more inclusive.

Workstream three of our plan outlines a series of actions we are taking to improve community engagement by policing with Black communities. This includes reviewing existing structures, such as independent advisory groups and scrutiny boards, which are in place across forces already to test how effective they are and come up with a structure for community engagement which every force across the country can use.

Our Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board has been established to oversee and scrutinise our work, holding our delivery of the plan to account and making recommendations and suggestions on the best ways for the plan to move forward, while many forces have introduced their own local scrutiny groups to review and guide delivery of the plan too.

More recently, we have established our national community reference group, a group made up of dozens of experts from across the country, predominantly of Black heritage, which reaches into communities across the country, while we have also renewed our engagement with national anti-racism groups and organisations.

Several specific media outlets have been commissioned to deliver targeted communications about the plan to communities across the UK, including specific programmes targeting young people, while our communications strategy includes specific campaigns and outputs to reach this demographic too. More information about the work we have done to date is available online.

A vast array of engagement work has been delivered through the plan on our work and what it is trying to achieve. At a national level the plan was shaped by a wealth of different organisations from the outset, including organisations such as the Criminal Justice Alliance, Runnymede Trust, National Black Police Association, the National Association of Muslim Police and the Leicestershire Police Hindu Association.

Centrally, we run regular engagement events on the plan with a variety of different stakeholders and communities, a snapshot of which is available to view online. As well as our Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board, we have also now established a community reference group, made up of dozens of experts ranging from lawyers and community leaders through to marketing specialists, who will help shape the plan and assist us in taking its message as far as we can to every community.

This is without mentioning the specific engagement work going on by forces across the country. Local forces have a much richer understanding of their local communities and have carried out lots of tailored communications and engagement, with many setting up their own local oversight and scrutiny boards to guide engagement with the plan across their respective areas.

Some forces have chosen to focus their delivery of the plan on every ethnic minority community. From the outset, we have been clear that racial disparities affecting Black people are most acute and the trust deficit presents a significant challenge to police legitimacy and effectiveness.

But we know that disparities also exist in policing’s relationships with other ethnic minorities, including the UK’s Asian communities and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. We do not intend to minimise these issues. The plan is in addition to ongoing efforts to ensure that policing is inclusive and fair to all, and that concerns from all minority or under-represented groups are acted on.

One of the key themes from our recent period of consultation was the need for the plan to have clear, tangible targets for its delivery. While accepting there was some questioning and feedback at some meetings and engagements around an overreliance on stats and metrics, this is an exception to the majority of the feedback we have received from Black communities.

We have specific workstreams in the plan looking at data and performance, as well as evidence and evaluation. This is something we have really focused on over recent months, and forms a key part of our maturity matrix. 

The maturity matrix will use both quantitative – numbers and data driven – performance measures, as well as asking forces to provide narrative on their work on more qualitative performance measures. These performance measures are spread across 14 standards, the majority of which are grouped under the outcomes in the Anti-Racism Commitment, as well as two overall standards.

That being said, we are not trying to make the plan purely about numbers and statistics. Lived experience and feedback from communities is at the heart of our work, which is why we have spoken with lots of different groups about the plan and will continue to do so. 

Our vision is to have the maturity matrix subject to internal moderation and reality testing, peer reviewed by other forces, as well as being consulted on with local Black communities. We want communities to be the ultimate judges of whether policing is progressing.

We have visited forces up and down the country to see the work they are doing and are clear that activity is happening, in forces in large urban areas through to those in smaller rural areas too. There are thousands of people working in or supporting policing to change its culture, processes and governance, while our recent progress report outlines how we are changing and driving performance on a national level. We also share a monthly newsletter about good work going on across policing, which you are welcome to sign up to here.

The College of Policing has developed a Practice Bank, where forces can submit promising examples of good work for review by the college with a view to this being shared across policing more widely. As a central team, this is an exercise that we have really focused on over recent months through our benchmarking lead Superintendent James Hahn.

He has spoken to all 43 police forces in England and Wales to understand what they are doing to support the PRAP, identifying key themes that forces are doing well and can be shared more widely, as well as where forces might need more support in terms of their delivery.

We have now collated lots of promising practice and initiatives into one place online, signposting to further work and information where appropriate. This is one part of wider knowledge sharing activities we will be undertaking, which also includes and further publications.

ISOB fulfils a critical function in providing an overview and external scrutiny of the plan and its delivery. ISOB is represented on the programme’s main governance board, publishes an annual report about the plan’s progress and makes recommendations, as well as holding regular meetings with the team and scrutinising various aspects of the plan in detail. You can read ISOB’s latest annual report on its website.

While the ISOB can only advise the plan, we are committed to working closely with them, for example having accepted the board’s three key recommendations in its most recent annual report and publishing progress reports outlining the activity we have done to meet these recommendations.

The group has consistently and robustly guided and challenged the plan in a constructive way and we appreciate the way in which ISOB continues to engage with us. The plan and ISOB both have a common goal, to improve policing for Black communities, and we will continue to work constructively together to achieve that.

The NPCC is the key driver for the national plan alongside the College of Policing. The NPCC brings UK police leaders together to set direction in policing and drive progress for the public. While we can encourage and guide forces to deliver the plan and share good practice, forces are independent institutions in their own right.

That being said, every chief constable remains signed up and committed to deliver this plan, while we are using the various forms of engagement with senior leaders across policing and the wider criminal justice sector outlined above to encourage forces to actively deliver the plan and its priorities.

We also hold monthly meetings with the main PRAP contacts in each force, to provide them with national updates, encourage forces to speak with one another about good practice and generally keep the momentum going around the plan’s delivery. Force visits support the continuance of this momentum.

While the plan has undoubtedly made strides forward in recent months, we are still in a position where there is more emphasis and focus on anti-racism in some forces than others, as well as a lack of awareness and understanding of the plan across policing more widely, outside of those specifically working to deliver this plan. We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to address this.

There are various complexities around why this may be the case, from representation and the wider political landscape through to resources and practical implementation of the respective plans. From our team’s perspective, we welcome the progress that policing has made in its response to violence against women and girls, which our PRAP team has been involved in to ensure it is culturally competent and reflects the specific needs of Black women.

Police reform should not be an ‘either or’ situation and driving culture change to rid our service of all forms of racism, discrimination and bias should be welcomed. From a PRAP perspective, we genuinely feel like our pace of delivery and progress has stepped up over recent months, a view which is shared by external partners such as ISOB. 

However, it is important that this progress continues and we give policing the tools it needs to drive long term culture change.

The plan’s National Community Reference Group (NCRG) is an independent panel of experts and specialists, predominantly drawn from Black communities, which can provide consultation and feedback on various aspects of the plan. The group’s membership includes lawyers, academics, marketing specialists as well as representatives from community groups. Its membership is drawn from across the country and further information can be made available on request.

The group chaired by Colin Burton has also played a big part in several projects to help with consultation and engagement on the plan, using links with social media influencers and platforms to reach young people. If you would like further information about the group then please get in touch with us and we can put you in touch with Colin.

We know that for real change to happen, officers and staff need to fully understand the affect policing has on communities. We are seeing pockets of change with anti-racist training for all staff in some forces, delivered face to face and in partnership with local Black communities. There are encouraging signs from local evaluation of these courses that they are changing attitudes and behaviour of course participants. A review of this training and identifying best practice is underway as part of our central benchmarking exercise.

However, we recognise there is much more to do. Workstream one of our plan puts a real focus on what we can do to change and improve internal attitudes and behaviour. This includes developing officers’ and staff members’ understanding of Black history and the relationship between policing and Black communities, as well as educating them on challenging assumptions and bias. Products to assist this training have been produced nationally and made available to every police force.

Further work is ongoing around behaviour change with the College of Policing, while other workstreams are delivering work to challenge bias in our practices. This includes commissioning an independent programme of research that explores the causes of racial disparities in the police use of Taser, which will inform national guidance around how Taser is used by officers on the frontline.

We want Black officers and staff to feel valued and supported in policing and that all of their colleagues are on their side. For too many, this is not their experience of our service. This is unacceptable and must change.

Our Black Workforce surveys are being conducted in every force annually to better understand the experiences of Black employees. Key themes have been found and interrogated and work is now ongoing to determine action across policing to address them and improve the experiences of Black people in policing. These surveys will continue to be analysed to track progress and highlight new issues or topics that need further action.

Every Black officer and member of staff should be offered access to their local Black Police Association or Race Equality Network, and we have prepared guidance for chief officers to ensure this happens across the country.

National standards are being introduced throughout all police officer recruitment and promotion processes, to minimise the racial disparity that Black officers and staff face in selection and progression. Bespoke talent management and mentoring programmes are also available to Black officers and staff to support career progression in policing.

Workstream one of our plan outlines key steps we are taking to address the unrepresentative nature of police recruitment, retention and progression of Black people, to ensure that the misconduct system is fair and representative, and to work towards building a more inclusive working culture across policing.

This includes introducing national standards for recruitment and promotion processes to minimise any racial disparities faced by Black communities, developing talent management programmes to help Black officers and staff progress, as well as having a relentless focus on community engagement and outreach work to encourage more people from Black communities into policing.

The Police Uplift programme has been the driving force behind the recruitment of 20,000 new police officers in recent years, and has collated a series of successful recruitment initiatives implemented by forces, including those to directly support recruitment from Black communities as well as wider positive action programmes.