Our Race Action Plan - One year of progress
Main article content
One year ago, on 24 May 2022, the national Police Race Action Plan was launched, developed jointly by the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing, setting out changes across policing to improve outcomes for Black people who work within or interact with policing.
The national plan allowed us to develop our localised interim Thames Valley Police Race Action Plan, aimed at improving the trust and confidence of our minority ethnic communities, especially our Black communities, and of our own workforce, and address any racial disparities in the service.
Over the last year, we have progressed our interim plan by:
-
Joining over 800 employers in signing up to the Race at Work charter, a Business in the Community (BITC) initiative that encourages businesses to commit to improving equal opportunities for Black, Asian, Mixed Race and ethnically diverse employees in the UK.
-
Launching the Independent Scrutiny Oversight Board (ISOB) in October 2022 for our Race Action Plan, chaired by Mr Calvin Wilson, a barrister with extensive experience of working with Black and other seldom-heard communities.
-
Becoming the first police force to be awarded with the prestigious ‘Race Equality Matters Trailblazer’ status by an independent panel of judges of Race Equality Matters, in recognition of our work to address racial inequality within the organisation.
-
Launching our first internal Black History Month in-person conference, which saw sharing information related to Black History Month (BHM) with our employees, with the aim of raising awareness and educating our workforce on matters related to Black history.
-
Commencing our public consultation activity at the beginning of 2023, with over 18 community events taking place across the Thames Valley, gathering feedback from our communities about the interim plan, with more consultation activity planned over Summer 2023.
We continue to take the work supporting our Race Action Plan seriously, and while this has been a good start to this work, there is much more to be done in the coming years.
ACC Dennis Murray, TVP Race Action Plan Lead, reflects on the first year of progress and the recent public consultation:
”We have been working incredibly hard to produce a meaningful and engaging plan. Recognising the importance of this work, and to ensure delivery we have created an Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board (ISOB), chaired by Mr Calvin Wilson, Barrister, and a membership of individuals with significant experience of working with our seldom heard communities. We hope with this recent public feedback, and that of our Independent advisory groups, we will ensure that our plan addresses the issues of local concern as well as national objectives. As the National Race Action Plan has been delayed, we are taking the opportunity following advice from our ISOB to extend consultation on our interim Race Action Plan to gather even more feedback from our communities. To achieve this, we will be attending events throughout July and August 2023 in our communities, with a view to publishing our finalised TVP Race Action Plan later in the year.”
Be part of our Race Action Plan:
Your input is important in helping us shape the activities that will form our finalised plan.
There are several ways in which you get involved:
-
Join TVP’s Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board; the board is currently recruiting members of the public to join them and will soon have their own independent website. To get involved and volunteer in TVP’s ISOB, please email [email protected]
-
Share your thoughts and ideas with us and help drive the plan forward together; provide feedback through our anonymous online submission form.
-
Get in touch with your TVP Race Action Plan area contact to see how you can support (details on our Our Race Action Plan page)
To read our plan and learn more, we encourage you to visit Our Race Action Plan page.
CB