Police chief doubles down on ‘racist’ recruitment policy calling for ‘positive discrimination’

Positive discrimination – gives certain candidates from specific groups preferential treatment over others – is not currently legal across England and Wales.

The police force’s current policy has sparked concerns that white British candidates are being unfairly treated, potentially amounting to a form of positive discrimination which could be unlawful.

Earlier this week, ex officers alleged that the force was running a “hidden” recruitment policy to boost representation of certain groups within the organisation.

A whistleblower, who was heavily involved in sifting job applications, told The Telegraph that black and far east Asian candidates were given a “gold” ranking, followed by those of south-east Asian origin in the “silver” tier.

“White others”, including Irish and eastern European backgrounds, were classified as “bronze”.

However, a WYP spokesman denied the claim and argued that the support offered to candidates – regardless of gold, silver or bronze structure – was offered to all candidates, regardless of their ethnicity.

The whistleblower reported to senior officers that “the pipeline for anyone white British is strangled, whilst anyone not white British is ushered through”.

A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: “The most recent census found that 23 per cent of people in West Yorkshire identified as being from an ethnic minority background. Our current police officer representation is around nine per cent.”

He added that their use of Positive Action under the Equality Act 2010 was recently reviewed by inspectors and “no issues were identified”.