Applicants to the police who can barely write in English are being accepted by the Met in an attempt to improve diversity, one of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary has warned.

HMI Matt Parr said that while it was entirely “noble and right” that Scotland Yard was aiming to be more representative of the community it policed, it should not be at the expense of standards.

In 2021, Dame Cressida Dick, the then Met Commissioner, declared it was the force’s aspiration to recruit 40 per cent of its officers from the black and ethnic minority communities by 2023.

But despite the Government’s programme to boost the number of officers across the country, which has seen a significant recruitment campaign across policing, the number of BAME officers in London remains at less than 17 per cent.

Poster Comment:

That worked well in Memphis.