Race Action Plan

By being a police service that is representative of Black and ethnic minority individuals and communities and supports its officers and staff of a Black or minority ethnic heritage.

By being a police service that is fair, respectful and equitable in its actions towards Black and ethnic minority individuals and communities.

By being a police service that routinely involves Black and ethnic minority individuals and communities in its governance.

By being a police service that protects Black and ethnic minority individuals and communities from crime and seeks justice for them. 

Within Cumbria the leads of these workstreams at portfolio leads of Superintendent rank or above to ensure suitable seniority to drive change.  

• The force has delivered antiracism training, in areas including unconscious bias, cultural competency, College of Policing Upstander and Hate Crime, to all frontline officers. 

• Stop and Search training has been revised to include specific training around adultification of black children.  HMICFRS identified good practice in Cumbria relating to the referral of any stop-searches of children to the Child Centred Policing Team.  

• Learning and Development have completed an initial procedural justice e-learning video for officers.  This will form the basis of a series of videos linked to community confidence around use of powers delivered using college learn to track completion.   

• Community Beat Officers (CBOs) and Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) regularly attend identified community events/sessions, to provide visibility to a range of sections of the community and thereby establish relationships from which greater understanding can be gained directly from the community about their specific needs and how best police can address these. 

• Neighbourhood Policing leads have completed work to identify additional engagement opportunities across Cumbria, to further enhance engagement with Black residents and visitors. 

• Community Advisory Group and Cumbria Multi-cultural police association members have scrutinised Cumbria’s PRAP and PRAP activity with positive outcomes 

• NPT have a standing slot on the agenda for the Westmorland and Furness Youth Council – regular inputs are provided on a range of subjects to increase awareness of Safeguarding and confidence in reporting crime. 

• Satisfaction surveys are being conducted with a sample of victims who have been through the Hate Crime reporting and investigation process, to understand first-hand the level of satisfaction in the service received and the process as a whole. The results will help to identify difficulties experienced in the reporting process and provide areas for learning where the process could be improved. 

• Body Worn video of encounters is reviewed by Subject Matter Experts (SME), Inspectors, a learning panel and the external Community Scrutiny Panel, with any learning for the force or individual officers fed-back via an auditable feedback register which also feeds back into the governance board and changes to training inputs. 

• Strategic Performance Board and other governance boards (Workforce/Custody/Use of Force/Criminal Justice Unit etc.) regularly report on disproportionality.  E.g. Jan 2025 Strategic performance board reported on Black victims of crime and positive outcome rates. 

• The recording of all vehicle stops that take place under S163 of the Road Traffic Act commenced in September 2024 with data and disproportionality monitored in the Use of Force/Stop Search Board.  

• Stop and Search training has been revised to include specific training around adultification of black children.  HMICFRS identified good practice in Cumbria relating to the referral of any stop-searches of children to the Child Centred Policing Team.  

• The Workstream 2 portfolio lead has worked as part of the National Police Chief Council (NPCC) response to the disproportionality in Taser report produced by Keele University.    Taser disproportionality is monitored each month within the Use of Force/Stop Search Board and annually within the use of force disproportionality report.    

• The Constabulary has increased internal and external scrutiny on use of powers. 

• The force is revising the receipt process for stop and search using a QR code to direct persons subject to stop search to online survey questions to capture feedback or to trigger a Scrutiny Panel review of the use of the power.  The questions are based on the key pillars of procedural justice.   

• The Constabulary adopted the national BWV pre-record guidance as due process in early 2023.  

• Since the implementation of the Uplift programme the constabulary have utilised Positive Action to increase the recruitment and retention of Black and Brown talent. 

• We have implemented dedicated central resources of an Inspector, a Sgt responsible for Positive Action and a diversity manager, who manage and move forward PRAP work and drive local delivery in areas.  

• A buddy /mentoring scheme, detailed say interviews and support groups are well embedded into the organisation. 

In July, the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) launched the first progress report for the Police Race Action Plan (PRAP). The report provides an overview of the progress the PRAP has made since it was first published in 2022 and takes a look at the outcomes and the collective commitment across all forces to rid the police service of racism, discrimination and bias. You can find the full report linked on the NPCC website.