Humberside Police
Names & Job titles of team members:
PC Carl Palmer – Positive Action Officer PC Justin Robert – Positive Action Officer Milena Tomaszewska – Talent Acquisition Assistant
Please provide an overview of the work your team delivers:
Humberside Police’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy demonstrates our commitment to increase the diversity of our workforce to ensure we have a broader range of skills, knowledge, and experiences to deliver the best quality of policing to the communities we serve. Due to the government police uplift target set in March 2020 the Positive Action Team during this time have been predominantly focused on external engagement and attraction ensuring we were working to meet the aims of the force Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Strategy.
The Humberside Police Positive Action team are dedicated to building relationships with the diverse communities we serve who may or may not consider Humberside Police as a career choice and dispel any myths around policing. We currently target schools in areas that the current census shows diverse communities, particularly based about Ethnicity and religion however more recently we have been working with several schools who have been identified as having a strong LGBTQ+ network.
We also engage with, colleges, universities, places of worship, community events and national events such as Armed Forces Days and PRIDE.
Please list any significant achievements made by your team since its inception:
Over the past 3 years the team have been instrumental in structural and cultural change. Below are examples some of the achievements:
• Implement a new Talent Acquisition strategy, also maximising the opportunity increase workforce representation.
• Undertook a review of recruitment data and identified areas of disproportionality from under-represented groups.
• Removed large scale sifting tools and behavioural style questionnaires impacting ethnic minority applicants prior to assessment centres.
• Removed the requirement for a full UK driving license at point of application, as Covid and cost of living disproportionately impacting on ability for younger/ lower socio-economic backgrounds to attain and therefore apply.
• Supported applicants with cost for the recognition of non-UK gained qualifications.
• Introduced the PushFar mentoring Platform for Positive Action applicants, allowing the access to bespoke support, and coaching throughout the process.
• Introduced an Expression of Interest (EOI) platform to enable the force to understand the potential future talent pool.
• Provide bespoke 1-2-1 support for under-represented candidates
• Spend increased time at events and educational establishments to attract candidates
• Created documents to support the applicant journey
• Created a social media presence to attract different groups to policing opportunities
• Created monthly newsletters to keep candidates up to date on information as they progress through the onboarding process.
The team have also invested a significant amount of time in ensuring we are visible at community events:
• Held the forces first ‘Careers in Policing’ events with approx. 600 attendees
• Created and delivered several workshops at different stages of the recruitment process with hundreds of future police officers attending.
The Positive Action team support all candidates with a protected characteristic through the force recruitment process, both on a one-to-one basis and on group workshops. This includes:
• Providing additional support through the assessment centre process
• Providing additional support through the professional discussion stage.
• Continued mentoring on a one-to-one basis for those who request it
The Team form strong bonds with these individuals and will continue with this support when to finally start their training with the force. A recent example is a candidate from the Asian community also had a stammer, the team helped the officer to receive the reasonable adjustments for his training and his future posting, they also ensured the officer had a collar number with numbers that they could easily say over the radios.
In addition, the team work incredibly hard to continuously improve the efficiencies of the recruitment processes to ensure improvements for the candidate experience through their recruitment and onboarding process. This includes:
• Candidates receive a presentation question to prior to their in-force assessment allowing them to be able to prepare in a way that suits them.
• Questions are pre seen to interview for many of our processes
• Questions are available in interview for candidates to use if they wish
The Positive Action Team have also undertaken Neurodiversity Training to strengthen their own understanding of neurodiversity. We have broken further barriers down in relation to neurodiverse candidates and have adjusted recruitment documentation that helps with our candidates, for example it will provide a photo of the interview panel and allow comfort aids at interview. For our student Officer recruitment, we have a video of the headquarter corridors and interviews rooms, so candidates can familiarise themselves on what to expect when attending an interview. This will be rolled out in the next 12 months for all the other stations.
The data below shows how many events the team have conducted in the last 18 months: –
Online Events Tickets Sold
DHEP Eligibility Workshop 110
Police Constable Eligibility Workshop – IPLDP 55
Detective Degree Holder Eligibility Workshop 76
IPLDP+ Eligibility Workshop – August 22 74
Professional Discussion Workshop 80
Online Assessment Centre Workshop 73
‘Keeping Warm’ Workshop – Humberside Police 65
Professional Discussion Workshop 63
November Online Assessment Centre Workshop 39
Professional Discussion Workshop – Nov 22 38
Online Assessment Centre Workshop – Jan 23 39
IPLDP+ Uniform and Detective Eligibility Workshop 149
Professional Discussion Workshop – Mar 23 71
IPLDP+ Uniform and Detective Eligibility Workshop 66
Online Assessment Centre Workshop – Apr 23 66
Professional Discussion Workshop – May 23 45
IPLDP+ Uniform and Detective Eligibility Workshop 18
Online Assessment Centre Workshop – July 23 19
Career in Policing event 1 215
Career in policing event 2 373
Total tickets sold 1734
What impact has your team had on the organisation?
The consistently hard work of the team has meant the force has over-achieved their police officer uplift targets as demonstrated in the table below:
Year Uplift Target Attrition Actual
1 97 officers 98 officers 181 officers
2 96 officers 138 officers 220 officers
3 129 officers 204 officers 332 Officers
Total 322 officers 440 officers 733 officers
Our last two uplift intakes for December 22 and March 23 were two of the largest intakes in the history of Humberside Police recruitment demonstrating the impact of the work the Positive Action team have undertaken since their inception.
The December intake of 78 officers:
Disability 6.4% (which is 1.5 times our force average)
LGBTQ+ 15% (which is three times our force average)
Race 6.4% (which is twice our force average)
The March intake of 80 officers:
Disability 14% (which is three times our force average)
LGBTQ+ 15% (which is three times our force average)
Race 8% (which is 2.5 times our force average)
Due to the increase in representation due to the Positive Action teams work, overall force representation levels have also increased across several protected characteristics:
Force Family Headcount Female % BAME % LGBT+% Disabled % 56+ %
2019/20 Q4 3786 48.10% 2.60% 2.80% 4.20% 12.40%
01.04.23 50.00% 2.02% 5.19% 5.72% 12.30%
Police Officers
2019/20 Q4 2006 35.70% 2.80% 3.40% 3.70% 1.30%
01.04.23 2296 39.00% 2.01% 6.80% 5.06% 1.74%
Police Staff
2019/20 Q4 1483 66.50% 2.10% 1.80% 5.30% 25.00%
01.04.23 1344 70.00% 2.01% 2.90% 6.85% 27.38%
Special Constables
2019/20 Q4 143 28.70% 1.40% 2.10% 0.70% 2.80%
01.04.23 97 20.00% unknown 2.06% 3.09% 4.12%
Volunteers
2019/20 Q4 154 49.30% 7.10% 3.30% 3.30% 42.90%
01.04.23 95 56.00% 5.26% 5.26% 7.37% 52.63%
While we recognise, we still have a long way to go in increasing representation across all protected characteristics. The work ethic, passion, commitment, determination of this team is what has enabled the organisation to achieve the results shown above.
We are proud to say our representation has increased to unprecedented levels which is indicative of strong bonds with our underrepresented communities and increased public confidence.
Please provide an endorsing statement from someone who can support this nomination (Max. 500 words) Humberside Police strives to become a leading employer that reflects the communities it serves, creating an inclusive, diverse, and supportive workplace for all officers, staff and volunteers and the work that the Positive Action Team are fundamental in making this happen and I believe the results in this application show this.
We recognise that having a diverse workforce opens the door quite literally to a wide range of diverse perspectives. It opens a wider range of skills and talents and supports employee wellbeing as opportunities are realised. For the Positive Action Team to actively promote a diverse workforce through their engagement strategy so we can better respond to our community’s needs. We want to continue to strive for further representation and legitimacy even when we become truly reflective of the communities, we serve.
Diversity is an important part of operational effectiveness. We need to understand communities if we are to truly build trusted links within them. Our officers and staff must be able to respond quickly to the changing demographics of local communities, overcome language barriers and bring a deep knowledge of cultures. The effective work of the Positive Action Team greatly assists in breaking down barriers within our communities and open opportunities that may not have previously been considered.
The Positive Action Team focus on simple and efficient attraction and marketing strategies to attract sufficient numbers, quality and diversity of applicants, particularly from underrepresented groups. They have made positive changes to the recruitment processes to ensure that applicants are best prepared for the role that they have interviewed for. This support doesn’t not stop once staff are onboarded, and the positive action team are often seen around the training centre and police stations engaging with our staff and offering support.
I wholly support this application in the Inclusive Companies awards.
Chief Constable Paul Anderson
