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Hampshire Police Authority

Equality, diversity & human rights

Hampshire Police Authority’s vision for equality, diversity & human rights

‘Hampshire Police Authority’s vision for equality, diversity and human rights is that every person and every employee who receives, or is affected by the Authority’s activities and services should perceive their experience to be fair and equitable.

The Authority expects all people of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, whether a resident, visitor or someone who works in the two counties, to be treated fairly and with dignity, free from harassment, bullying, victimisation or discrimination. The Authority wishes to be open and transparent in the way in which the Authority functions and the ways in which its policies, roles and responsibilities are delivered.

In short, the promotion and maintenance of equality, diversity and human rights shall be at the heart of all the Authority’s work’

Equality Objective

At the Authority’s meeting in February 2012 the following Equality Objective was agreed, (which comes in to effect on 6 April 2012)

To ensure good governance through support, scrutiny and monitoring progress of Hampshire Constabulary’s equality objectives


At the same meeting the Authority also received Hampshire Constabulary’s Equality Objectives as follows:

  1. To increase the level of hate crime reporting, in particular, disability related hate crime, and deliver an effective response to investigation and victim care.

  2. To improve the recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce (proposed target: 5% of new entrants to the organisation to be from a BME background).

  3. To ensure stop and search powers are used ethically and any disproportionality is understood and accounted for.

  4. To have a structured and auditable public engagement strategy, that meets the needs of diverse communities.

  5. To improve internal oversight and ownership of equality, through the Strategic Fairness and Equality Group

To meet the Authority’s objective to ensure the Constabulary’s is compliant the Authority will:

  • Monitor agreed targets through its Performance Committee;

  • oversees the Constabulary’s engagement strategy via the Community Engagement Committee;

  • conduct scrutiny tasks on Hate Crime (Community Engagement Committee), Recruitment and Retention (Personnel and Professional Standards Committee), Stop and Search (Community Engagement Committee);

  • support the constabulary’s Hate Crime Road-shows and promote  Stop and Search ‘know your rights’; and

  • receive biannual reports on the progress of the Constabulary’s equality objectives.

About the Authority

Hampshire Police Authority is an independent organisation that is responsible for overseeing the work of Hampshire Constabulary to make sure that it operates as efficiently and effectively as possible within available resources for the people of Hampshire and the isle of Wight. The Authority is independent of the Constabulary and acts as a critical friend, supporting or challenging the actions and performance of the Force, as appropriate.

Equality Data (published 31 January 2012)

Policing on a daily basis is provided by Hampshire Constabulary, any equality data relating to the work of Hampshire Constabulary can be found at the links below and on the Hampshire Constabulary website.

All Police Authority Committees regularly scrutinise areas of the Constabulary’s work that impacts upon equality. The relevant papers can be found on the committee pages. Data monitored, challenged and scrutinised includes:

The staff working directly for Hampshire Police Authority are employees of Hampshire County Council, to see staff data, policies and procedures and other equality information on this subject please visit www.hants.gov.uk

Hampshire Police Authority runs an Independent Custody Visitor scheme, to check on the welfare and wellbeing of people held in police custody and reports are provided to the full Authority meetings.  As of January 2012 we have 55 volunteers. To find out more about the scheme please visit our Custody Visiting pages.

The Authority currently engages all sections of the community to ensure that Hampshire and the Isle of Wight are safer places to live, work and visit. Our engagement activities enable us to understand the publics' priorities and staisfaction in the local police.   Some of the engagement conducted in 2011/12 focussed areas that directly impacted upon equality, diversity and human rights for example:

All these views help to helping shape the Policing Plan.

The Authority also works in partnership with community and voluntary organisations such as Hampshire Autistic Society with whom the we have produced the  “Autism Alert Card”, that allows people with autism to be easily identified if they ever come into contact with the criminal justice system.

The Autism Alert Partnership won the prestigious ‘Police project of the Year’ award at the second annual iESE Awards in March 2011.

iESE Award Presentation