Greater
Manchester Police
has been criticised for a diversity drive that a whistleblower has said encourages those with no GCSEs and little English to apply.
A former police recruiter from one of Britain’s biggest police forces has said its ‘Positive Action Team’ was told to go out in public to recruit people, regardless of language ability or qualifications.
They told
TalkTV
: ‘It didn’t matter if they couldn’t speak English or had never sat an exam – it was all about getting ticks in boxes.
‘If you got 40 names in a day, the bosses would say, “Great!”‘
The team, they added – which had around five or six full-time staff – ‘would focus on heavily Muslim communities across Manchester’.
Staff were not explicitly directed to target Muslim people – but the whistleblower said ‘it was obvious from where we were sent’.
They added: ‘We were told: “Get down to
Lidl
in Rusholme today and get as many details as you can”.’
The force would additionally conduct weekend workshops aimed at providing assistance with application processes for candidates from ethnic minorities; however, only ‘an extremely small number’ of individuals who expressed interest following the outreach efforts actually showed up, according to the whistleblower.
According to a 2022 police force report, of the newly recruited officers for the Greater Manchester Police (GMP), 47 percent are female and 15.9 percent come from various ethnic backgrounds.
As expected, the hiring campaigns near grocery stores ceased about twelve months back.
GMP Chief Constable Stephen Watson has previously said: ‘Positive action here extends to proactively reaching out to groups and encouraging them to join. But we have single windows.
Anyone can submit their application simultaneously. All candidates go through the identical procedure. We select the most qualified individuals. That’s how it works.
This follows the announcement made by West Yorkshire Police (WYP) last week.
It would temporarily prevent white British applicants from joining its police constable recruitment program.
.
Ex-officers claimed that ‘underrepresented groups’ are allowed to apply during an earlier phase, whereas entries from white British individuals are being kept concealed.
WYP mentioned that these policies are designed to ensure ‘various communities’ are adequately represented by the officers who serve them, according to The Telegraph.
However, ex-members of the organization claim that it secretly implements a selective hiring practice aimed at particular communities.
A person who leaked information from inside an organization and was deeply engaged in reviewing job applications for new hires stated that they expressed worries about the policy but were advised against meddling.
He mentioned that Black and Far East Asian candidates were noted as being significantly underrepresented and received a ‘gold’ rating. In contrast, individuals of South-East Asian descent were placed in the silver category.
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