Race Action Plan

In May 2022 the national Police Race Action Plan was launched and sets out changes across policing to improve outcomes for Black people who work within or interact with policing.

The plan was developed jointly by the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), working in collaboration with Black communities and partners – including the National Black Policing Association (NBPA) and an independent scrutiny and oversight board (ISOB). It has the commitment of all 43 chief constables in England and Wales.

The national plan has allowed us to develop our localised Surrey Police Race Action Plan which focuses on key priorities for 2024/25.

Why are we developing our Surrey Police Race Action Plan?

Surrey Police’s ongoing commitment to race equality has now been formally underlined through the publishing of a joint anti-racist statement with our neighbouring force in Sussex. This sets out the expectations of our officers, staff and volunteers as we commit to creating equality of opportunity and preventing inequality of protection. We promise to challenge injustice, ensure fairness and to uphold anti-racist principles. You can read our full anti-racist statement here: Surrey Police and Sussex Police anti-racism statement.pdf.

Our Race Action Plan ensures that we then have dedicated priorities and activities to bring that statement to life and make certain that meaningful and expedited progress is made where for too long there hasn't been enough. Our overall aim is to improve the trust and confidence of our Black communities and of Black colleagues within our own workforce and address any racial disparities in the service.

How are we driving forward our Race Action Plan?

Our plan has four key themes which acknowledge where we want to make the most progress and where we are focusing efforts in the year ahead.

• Represented: We want communities to see themselves when they look at policing. This is about representation, retention and our internal culture.
• Respected: We want to treat our communities fairly, with respect and dignity. This is about eliminating any racial bias and disproportionality.
• Involved: We want to involve our communities in policing. This is about knowing where our communities are and improving our engagement with them.
• Protected: We want to protect our communities. This is about taking action if some communities get a different service than others.

The plan allows us to develop on the work that is already taking place within Surrey Police to address racial disparities. Some of this work includes:

Listening and working with our Surrey communities:

• We have launched our Race Advisory Group, which works in partnership with the diverse ethnic minority communities in Surrey to improve the trust and confidence between different groups representing race and ethnicity. The group acts as a critical friend to advise, challenge and inform the police on variety of topics, traditions, and practices related to the protected characteristics of race. The Race Advisory Group sits alongside other community panels through which we engage with and listen to our residents, such as the Independent Advisory Group and Stop and Search Scrutiny Panel.
• We have increased our engagement with the community, to build relationships, listen and understand community priorities and to bring neighbourhood policing teams closer to the communities they serve.
• We have dedicated resources to better support victims of hate crime, with the introduction of the Hate Advisory Liaison Officers. This is a pilot project currently in the north of Surrey, which aims to increase the confidence that minority communities have in Surrey Police, while also encouraging them to support police action. The role provides support and a point of contact for victims of race-related hate crimes, and aims to assist in the reduction of Outcome 16s, where a suspect is identified but the victim does not support further action.
• Surrey Police and Sussex Police are leading a national project focused on the recording of S163 vehicle stops. The system captures and analyses data for the ethnicity of drivers stopped under S163 to support forces in identifying and tackling racial disparities. This allows policing to evidence the legitimacy of stops through internal and independent scrutiny and to take appropriate reformative action if needed.

Listening and working with our people in Surrey Police:

• Our Advise, Challenge, Support Board brings together senior leaders and colleagues from ethnic minority groups to critically examine our Race Action Plan and openly discuss the actions we’re implementing. The meetings take place every three months, with participants dressed in plain clothes to break down the rank structure. We are committed to incorporating the lived experiences and feedback from our officers, staff and volunteers of colour into our organisational decisions. This informs our approach to addressing racial issues and ensures continuous improvement.
• Continued development of mentoring programmes that support our colleagues of colour, including our successful PALS (Programme Action Learning) programme that offers Black, Asian and ethnic minority officers and staff the opportunity to receive personal development and professional training skills to assist with future professional goals. We have also partnered with KPMG as part of their Cross Company Allyship Programme to offer police colleagues the opportunity to mentor or be mentored as part of this inclusive mentoring scheme aimed at bringing the lived experiences of Black Heritage and ethnic minority people to the forefront of network building.
• We are proud to have a diverse range of staff support networks, including the Surrey Police Association of Culture and Ethnicity (SPACE) and the recently formed United Sisters of Policing group that supports women of colour. These networks play a crucial role in fostering inclusivity and driving positive change. They provide a platform for employees to share their experiences and inform decision-making. You can learn more about our staff networks on our Inclusion page.
• Our ongoing assessment of the support offered to officers who experience repeated hate crimes has involved changing our processes to ensure when a known individual poses a significant risk of demonstrating racially abusive behaviour, our colleagues are notified in advance and provided support if needed. All hate related incidents are reported during Senior Chief Officer meetings and we’re creating a race hate tracker to inform management support, with senior officers overseeing each investigation.

How can you help support our Race Action Plan?

If you would like to share your views with the National Police Chiefs’ Council team who are leading the Police Race Action Plan, or ask questions or obtain information, you can do so by emailing: [email protected].

If you would like to provide input into the delivery of Surrey Police’s Race Action Plan and more broadly work in partnership with Surrey Police to improve trust and confidence between different groups representing race and ethnicity, you can join our Race Advisory Group. Find out more by emailing [email protected].

There are also a number of other community scrutiny panels where we are actively seeking wider representation including our Independent Advisory Group, our LGBTQ+ Advisory Group and our Disability Advisory Group. You can find out more about these groups on our Inclusion webpage.

We also run a quarterly External Scrutiny Panel on both stop and search and use of force. This is chaired independently and made up of a group of community members who hold senior officers to account by asking questions and reviewing and scrutinising our use of these powers through reviews of Body Worn Video, records of completed forms and data trends. For more information about getting involved, click here.