The police service has made “substantial progress” in its recruitment of female officers but barriers preventing progression through the ranks remain and should be investigated further, a Home Office report on women in policing has revealed.

Assessment of Women in Policing, published last week, said the recruitment and representation of female officers has improved significantly in the last decade, with the police service having more women in its ranks than ever before.

The number of women in the service has increased each year since 1999. There are currently over 95,000 women in the police service; a 50 per cent increase from 67,000 in 2003, though recruitment varies between forces. For Cleveland Police, 25 per cent of new recruits were women, but in Dyfed Powys Police this figure reached 58 per cent; the average for 2009 was 37 per cent.

Women continue to remain under-represented in the higher ranks, the report said, but as they were seen to have the same chances of being promoted as their male counterparts, this is partly attributable to past recruitment trends. The picture has certainly improved with female representation at the ranks of sergeant and beyond having more than doubled between 1999 and 2009.
The data also highlights discrepancies in female representation in specialist roles such as firearms, with possible implications for lateral and upwards progression.

At March 31, 2009, there were:
•35 women in Association of Chief Police Officer (ACPO) ranks compared with 11 in 1999.
•180 women in the superintendents ranks compared with 57 in 1999.
•1,393 women inspectors/chief inspectors compared with 427 in 1999.
•3,780 women sergeants compared with 1,542 in 1999.

The report suggests, in 2008/09, women constables had less chance of being promoted to sergeant than men, but the likelihood of a woman being promoted to inspector, chief inspector, superintendent or to ACPO was higher than for a man. It is believed this will increase female representation at higher ranks in the future.

The report recommends that further research be conducted into why promotion of women constables to sergeants is limited and that this be considered by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA).

Chief Superintendent Irene Curtis is due to take over the role of vice-president of the Police Superintendents Association for England and Wales (PSAEW) on March 22 and in her new role as Diversity Champion for the association will be pursuing solutions to some of the barriers that face women in the workplace.

Ms Curtis told Police Professional that while the report identified barriers for women moving to the rank of sergeant, her main concern was that women were least represented in the superintending ranks.

“The most recent Home Office statistics show that only 11.5 per cent of superintending ranks are women, whereas for ACPO it’s 15.7 per cent and inspecting ranks it’s 11.7 per cent, even higher for sergeant and constable. My concern is actually that the superintending ranks are where we have the lowest proportion of female representation and I think that we still need to address the barriers stopping women taking that step up from chief inspector to superintendent.”

These barriers include the long hours culture associated with being a superintendent, which Ms Curtis said were perpetuated by those in the rank of superintendent and at ACPO level, with a subsequent negative effect on work-life balance.

“There is an expectation you will work long hours if you’re a superintendent, which I don’t think is realistic. I don’t think it’s true that you have to work long hours to be an effective superintendent.

The perception that women have of what it’s like to be a superintendent is a result of the embedded culture and messages given off by officers in that rank.

“For people who have caring responsibilities and want to commit themselves to being a senior manager in the organisation there’s a real challenge around that work life balance and I think that’s the biggest stumbling block for most women.

“The more female role models the better, the more role models you see at superintending ranks, the more likely it is women will put themselves forward for it, but it is challenging.”

Tracey Moynihan, British Association of Women in Policing (BAWP) coordinator, said she believed more research was needed to understand why women are underrepresented in senior ranks.

“There definitely needs to be more investigation into the barriers preventing promotion, for some women it may be that they’re not attracted to the roles but that needs to be looked at.

Is it that women are more represented in areas like domestic violence because that’s what they’re interested in? Or is it because we’ve got cultural blockers which still exist?” Ms Moynihan said.
With more women entering the workplace, health issues, including maternity, IVF and the menopause, will need to be better understood by management and a document is due out later this year to provide national guidance on these topics.

Workshops revealed that uniforms remain a key concern for female officers. Action is being taken following the Policing White Paper to provide a single national uniform for officers and police community support officers (PCSOs), appropriate for men and women. The BAWP has been working with ACPO for many years towards developing a uniform that is comfortable for women to wear, particularly when it comes to stab vests and other protective garments.

“There are some really good practices across the country in various different pockets of forces, but it’s not nationally and because we’ve got individual procurement departments in each force it comes down to budget and personal preference. We now have to make sure each force adopts the same kind of design that’s fit for women,” Ms Moynihan said.

The report includes an action plan consisting of six recommendations:

• Recommendation one: Each police authority should publish an annual plan that identifies priorities for action on female recruitment, retention and progression, and sets out the measures that will be used to deliver improvements. This item will be included in the three-year Equality Diversity and Human Rights Strategy Action Plan.
• Recommendation two: Further research should be carried out into the gender gap in promotion rates to sergeant, drawing on any existing research, to identify causes for the disparity and suggest possible solutions, and into barriers to promotion at all levels.
• Recommendation three: Further research to be undertaken into female representation in specialist roles, to identify barriers to women’s entry into specialist roles, strategies that have increased female representation in CID, and opportunities to further tackle these barriers.
• Recommendation four: Although police officer resignation rates remain very low, the proportion of women officers leaving for domestic reasons is greater than for male officers. Information from exit interviews should be acted upon at force level. Further work needs to be done to embed flexible working, including the re-launch of the Home Office Flexible Working Guidance, to ensure the police service remains an employer of choice.
• Recommendation five: The provision of a single national police uniform and a single national uniform for PCSOs, appropriate for men and women, and a full Equality Impact Assessment to be carried out by the ACPO Working Group on Police Uniforms when procuring the new national uniform, to take into account all equality issues.
• This item will be included in the three-year Equality Diversity and Human Rights Strategy Action Plan and BAWP will aim to provide supplementary material on uniform design in the coming months.
• Recommendation six: The Police Staff Council should carry out a survey of equal pay audits in forces and any action that has been taken as a result of this.

Good Practice

Good Practice Database

The NPIA and the BAWP launched the database in 2009. It is a comprehensive catalogue of good practice drawn from work undertaken by forces, with evaluations provided where they have been undertaken. The database provides a breakdown of interventions supporting each of the Gender Agenda aims ranging from: mentoring schemes; schemes to raise awareness of women’s issues; in force women’s leadership development programmes; women’s support networks; awards highlighting the wide range of work undertaken by women; recruitment familiarisation days for potential women recruits; work with schools promoting police careers to girls and work on promoting specialist areas to women, including firearms.

The National Senior Careers Advisory Service (NSCAS)

One of NSCAS’ key goals is to specifically tackle the under-representation of women and minority ethnic officers at ACPO level. In 2007, the NPIA introduced a positive action initiative specifically for women and BME officers at Superintendent level with the aim of encouraging them to apply for the NSCAS service. The introduction of this initiative has enabled the NSCAS Development Advisers to reach out to a wider group of BME and female officers and staff below ACPO level to encourage them to think about their career aspirations and personal development goals. 50 of NSCAS’ 250 existing clients are women.

NPIA Positive Action Leadership Programme (PALP)

The PALP is a national positive action initiative designed to improve the retention and progression of staff from under-represented groups. The programme is open to police officers and police staff of different faiths, black and minority ethnic, disabled, female, and gay/lesbian/bisexual people. The programme is delivered through a combination of national programmes at NPIA centres and bespoke in-force training.