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Met Police’s review of vetting and hiring practices highlights serious failings.

Jeremy Crook OBE, Action for Race Equality’s Chief Executive, comments on yesterday’s report released by the Metropolitan Police.

“Yesterday the Metropolitan Police published its ‘Historic Vetting and Hiring Practices Review Final Report’.

“Before I go on, I should share that I was an unpaid external member of the Met’s STRIDE Board (which focused on Inclusion, Diversity and Equality) for more than eight years and more recently an external member of their Professional Standards Reference Group. These have both been disbanded.

“During my time on the STRIDE Board, there were several conversations about the need to increase the recruitment of officers from ethnic minority and under-represented backgrounds and whose application success rates were much lower than white applicants.

“I also recall some of the reasons for these low rates including ethnic minority applicants being failed for literally not crossing the ‘t’s’ and doting the ‘i’s’ in their written applications. The evidence indicated that assessment personnel were more stringently assessing applications from ethnic minorities. It was for reasons such as these that the Met put in place a ‘Vetting Panel’ to help increase ethnic minority success rates.

“Let me be clear – no one should be allowed to join the police (officers and civil staff) without meeting: the full recruitment requirements; being properly background checked; and having references taken up before they are appointed. The public would be shocked to hear this had not always happened.

“The Times coverage of the Met’s 16-page report was deeply frustrating – their headline was, ‘Crime spree by Met Police Officers waved through in diversity push’. (David Woode, Crime Editor. The Times, 8/1/26)

“I am not naïve and so understand newspapers write for their readership and have their own news agenda. However, in these difficult times for race relations and community cohesion we should expect more from responsible media organisations. Citing diversity as the underlying reason for the Met’s serious recruitment failures only serves to make matters worse for our police services through misdirection.

“According to the Met it was this push to recruit more officers within a short period of time which led to requirements being relaxed with such serious consequences.

“As far as I am concerned the Met leadership and the system that permitted these extremely lax practices are to blame for the recruitment of unfit individuals and especially those that went on to commit serious crimes.

The Review sets out six main findings relating to:

  1. Recruitment Pressure – the need to recruit thousands of officers and staff in a short period of time during the period of the Home Office Police Uplift Programme (PUP).
  2. Vetting Deviations – the Met being allowed to deviate from the Authorised Professional Practice (APP) in vetting of prospective officers and staff.
  3. Vetting Panel – which was set up to address known disproportionality in the vetting system, designed to consider applicants, particularly from under-represented groups, who had been denied clearances. The Report states that, ‘in some cases, however, the panel overturned the decision of vetting officers despite adverse intelligence existing.’
  4. References – between 2018 and April 2022, the Met fully or partially dispensed with the requirement to obtain pre-employment references or deferred the completion of this process until new recruits were already in post.
  5. Recruitment Rationalisation – within the regulations, recruitment processes for transferees, internal police staff and Metropolitan Special Constabulary to the regular police office pipeline were rationalised, removing many personnel security checks.
  6. HMICFRS – the findings of this review are consistent with the concerns highlighted by the Inspector of Constabulary in their 2022 inspection into vetting, misconduct and misogyny in the police service.

This raises questions about the seniority and competence of the panel members and what exactly constitutes ‘adverse intelligence’.

The review found approximately 5,100 officers and staff were affected during the period when there were deviations or practice changes to vetting. In addition, 3,338 officer and staff who were due for vetting review only had limited renewal checks completed.

The Report stated that the vetting paneldirectly or indirectly overturned the previous vetting rejection of a least 114 individuals, out of 505 known cases. According to the report there is evidence that 25 individuals (officers or staff) went on to comment misconduct (or be accused of a criminal office), circa 22%.

This is a system failure not a diversity issue. So let’s not use it as a scapegoat.

– Jeremy Crook OBE, Chief Executive, Action for Race Equality

For media queries please contact: hello@actionforraceequality.org.uk

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