Better Together - Our approach to Diversity, Equality and Inclusion

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Better Together - Our objectives
3. Better Together - With our communities
4. Better Together - With our workforce
5. Better Together - Within our organisation
6. Download this information as a PDF

We are committed to being an anti-discriminatory organisation. This means not only acting in a non-discriminatory way, but addressing systemic inequalities, disadvantage and discrimination.

1. Introduction

Better Together - Our approach to Diversity, Equality and Inclusion

Better Together is the title of Gloucestershire Constabulary’s approach to diversity, equality and inclusion. We chose the phrase ‘Better Together’ as it recognises that effective, legitimate policing is enhanced through working closely with all of our communities, staff and volunteers seeking to understand, value and support difference. Our approach will be underpinned by national advice and guidance such as the NPCC Vision 2025, relevant legislation such as the Public Sector Equality Duty (relating to the Equality Act 2010) and our understanding of local communities.

In 2020 we saw the terrible death of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. We acknowledge this and similar events and are committed to accelerating our Better Together work in confidence building across all communities but particularly recognising the concerns and fears of those members of the community and staff from all visible and non-visible ethnic minority backgrounds.

• We are committed to working with our communities to continue to build their trust and confidence in us. This means that we must be a learning organisation which welcomes engagement, feedback and challenge from
  all of the Gloucestershire communities.
• We aim to be an employer of choice – recognising the opportunity and responsibility of being the fifth largest employer in the county. We aim to build a workforce that is truly representative of the communities it serves,
  and a culture underpinned by the trust and confidence of all our officers, staff and volunteers with fair treatment and opportunities for all.

Our corporate strategy sets out our vision to protect the public and keep people safe from harm. We have set out three ‘base camps’ within it to help us to achieve that vision.

Our three base camps are:

• Supportive Leadership & Wellbeing – the focus on well-being of our staff and ensuring that they are provided with supportive leadership at all levels
• Standards Matter and Investigative Excellence – taking pride and care in all that we do ensuring we deliver a high quality of service
• Better Together – our approach to diversity, equality and inclusion.

Our commitment to Better Together within Gloucestershire Constabulary includes ensuring that we properly resource our ambition with dedicated staff and executive champions. Crucial to this will be the effective engagement, challenge, advice and support from community representatives and Critical Friends such as:

• Our Independent Advisory Group
• Our Community Legitimacy panel
• Internally through our staff associations and Staff Association Network (SAN).

We regularly measure our progress through analysis of relevant data and metrics. Review of progress is led by the Deputy Chief Constable.

This document sets out our approach to Better Together.

2. Better Together - Our objectives

We recognise the specific responsibilities placed on us as a Constabulary under the Public Sector Equality Duty. When public authorities carry out their functions, the Equality Act says they must have due regard or think about
the need to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who don’t
• foster or encourage good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who don’t.

We have set three strategic objectives to support our approach to Better Together and that reflect the responsibilities placed on us under the Equality Duty. These focus on our communities, our workforce and our
organisation:

Better Together – With our communities

Increasing the trust and confidence of our communities in our policing approach and the legitimacy of our actions.

Better Together – With our workforce

Increasing the trust and confidence of our existing staff with an emphasis on feedback from groups who are traditionally under-represented.

Better Together – Within our organisation

Accelerating the delivery of our Better Together approach, increasing representation across our workforce and ensuring a welcoming and inclusive environment.

Each objective will have an allocated senior leader to champion, own and progress our priorities in each area. This will include detailed delivery plans, focused communications and appropriate resources to drive activity and make progress against agreed outcomes.

We will monitor the progress of our delivery plans through regular reporting, data analysis and a clear, strong framework of governance. We will include our ‘Critical Friends’ in the monitoring of our progress and we will be open to listening to challenge and feedback.

The police service uses a variety of descriptive categories to describe groups or individuals which are mandated to us by central government structures. These categories are not always liked or agreed with by all community members and may on occasion cause offence, this is not our intention. We must however use these descriptions in order to report around nationally required monitoring data. We do continually keep these under review and welcome feedback.

3. Better Together – With our communities

Increasing the trust and confidence of our communities in our policing approach and the legitimacy of our actions.

All policing begins and ends in neighbourhoods, which are made up of diverse communities formed in many different ways including ethnicity, geographical location, urban/rural and communities of interest.

The Constabulary must maintain clear links with local people whilst playing our part in tackling criminality which causes harm within our county or beyond. Effective policing is supported and enhanced by community engagement which creates long term relationships based upon trust and confidence.

Our commitment is to police by consent and protect and reassure our communities. To do this, we will continue with our Neighbourhood Policing model and partnership working with statutory agencies and other public sector
organisations. We will also listen to and work with voluntary sector partners and key individuals such as the Independent Advisory Group (IAG), all of whom are fundamental to our community approach.

We are open to scrutiny and have community led panels such as Community Legitimacy, Hate Crime, and Stop and Search. We also monitor other key areas such as ‘Use of Force’ and ensure that this involves external community membership.

Our priorities

• We recognise the impact hate crime has on victims and communities. We will work to ensure effective reporting and response to hate crimes with a dedicated hate crime action plan, a designated senior responsible officer and specialist resources.
• The legitimate use of policing powers and initiatives will be an area of focus with detailed reporting, analysis and assessment of use of powers such as stop and search and use of force which we know are critical to
  community confidence.
• Continue to develop opportunities for increased transparency with the support of independent community reference groups and our Community Legitimacy panel.
• Building on our approach to community cohesion we use a focus which includes the OPCC priorities, the ‘Prevent’ agenda, young people and vulnerable communities. This is supported by specific action plans which
  assess our progress and impact through victim satisfaction surveys.
• Reviewing complaints related to discrimination to ensure we identify any themes, organisational learning or
  service improvement that will improve our response to the public.

4. Better Together – With our workforce

Increasing the trust and confidence of our existing staff with an emphasis on feedback from groups who are traditionally under-represented.

Our ambition to be an employer of choice recognises that we want to recruit, retain, progress and develop staff from communities that have traditionally been under-represented within the Constabulary. We want all of our staff
to feel satisfied with their work, listened to, supported, well led and where they have concerns – confident to raise them without fear and in an environment of openness, support and trust.

Our priorities

• Build on the already vibrant Staff Association Network (SAN), providing opportunity for regular engagement between representatives and senior colleagues, supporting network representatives with facilities time, development and championship. The Constabulary has a number of support associations including:
  - Ability
  - Christian Police Association
  - Gloucestershire Ethnic Minority Association
  - Women’s Initiative Network
  - LGBT staff support network
  - Veganism.
• Providing opportunities for action learning and development of the Gloucestershire Ethnic Minorities Association (GEMA), the Gloucestershire Constabulary staff association for black, minority and ethnic staff.
• Develop a programme which complements our Supportive Leadership & Wellbeing programme which specifically meets the needs of colleagues from ethnic minority communities.
• Undertake work to identify bias in the application of key reward and recognition opportunities such as bonus payments and honorariums.
• Routinely survey colleagues from under-represented groups who chose to leave the Constabulary to understand better their experience, identify any learning and appropriately act upon findings.
• Recognise the potential for adverse impact of processes such as complaints, conduct and performance on colleagues from under-represented groups. Analyse our data and identify areas for learning and improvement.
• Make Better Together a priority for all leaders across the organisation, provide opportunities for listening and learning to promote our goal of an inclusive culture.

5. Better Together – Within our organisation

Accelerating the delivery of our Better Together approach, increasing representation across our workforce and ensuring a welcoming and inclusive environment.

Our ambition to be an employer of choice within Gloucestershire is a priority for the Constabulary. We want to attract, recruit and retain individuals from across our communities. The diversity of our workforce is important to us and we recognise that we need to do more to encourage applications from all communities particularly those from people who are under-represented within our workforce.

The Better Together dedicated positive action team have the responsibility to work with candidates from communities who are under-represented within the Constabulary workforce. Their role is to provide information, encourage applications, support individual candidates and to work with communities to raise awareness of the opportunities to work within the Constabulary.

Our priorities

• We will invest in our Better Together positive action team to provide resources who can engage and inform local communities about the opportunities to work and volunteer as part of our Constabulary teams.
  Our Positive Action colleagues will be aligned to local policing areas to build understanding of our local communities, build engagement and support potential applicants.
• Our recruitment approach will be continually developed to ensure that it supports our ambition to attract applicants and encourage all communities to ‘step up and make a difference’. We will continually review our recruitment approach to generate interest and attract candidates – this includes the language, style and location where we advertise opportunities to join the Constabulary.
• We will develop a strong and vibrant network of recruitment ambassadors who can work alongside our Positive Action Team to provide individual support and guidance for potential applicants from under-represented communities. Our recruitment ambassadors are volunteers from across the Constabulary who support candidates in their application processes and who work with our positive action team to attend recruitment and attraction events.
• Continue to develop our culture to be inclusive and welcoming to all colleagues joining the Constabulary.
• We will monitor and assess the Constabulary’s progress towards achieving a representative workforce, regularly reporting activity and identifying opportunities to improve.

6. Download this information as a PDF

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