In 21/22, the City of London Police have been allocated 41 officers as part of the uplift programme, meaning it needs to aim for around 16 of them to be BAME.

City of London, the National Lead force for Fraud, has 872 officers as of the end of February 2021 and 67 officers are from BAME communities (7.7 per cent)

Between January 2020 and March 2021 almost 20 per cent of the total Student Officer Probationers intake were from a BAME background, as were 60 per cent of their Direct-Entry Detectives.

Chairman of the City of London Police Authority Board, James Thomson, said: “We are committed to building on the positive work that the City of London Police has already undertaken to address issues of inequality and inclusion.

“Respect for equality, diversity and human rights is essential in maintaining high levels of public trust and confidence in our officers.

“Together we will take meaningful steps to address barriers to equality and to ensure the force is truly representative of the communities it serves.”

A City of London spokesperson said diversity and inclusion “is something our leadership takes extremely seriously”.

“The force’s policy on equality and diversity is overseen by Assistant Commissioner Sutherland, and led day-to-day by our entire Senior Leadership Team, to ensure we have a workforce where colleagues feel supported and valued from the top down.”

“We are proud to be an inclusive employer and we have recently revised our action plan to focus on further diversifying our workforce and being representative of London’s population.

“We put a strong emphasis on recruiting talented applicants from BAME communities, particularly as we recruit new intakes of officers. This is reflective of the communities we work in, and we support the City of London Corporation’s initiative to increase BAME recruitment by 40 per cent.”

The Board also wants to ensure that in the recruitment of the next City of London Police Commissioner it will apply the Equality Act 2010 when shortlisting candidates, so as to encourage applicants with protected characteristics who are underrepresented to apply.  The PAB will urge the force to consider doing the same for all senior appointments with immediate effect.