The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has found that West Yorkshire Police (WYP) has the second most allegations made against it for discriminatory behaviour across England and Wales.
Between April 2020 and April 2021 there were 341 allegations against WYP, following London’s Metropolitan Police that had almost double the complaints, 692, and 108 more than the next closest, West Midlands Police, with 233.
The data was published the data last Tuesday, 16 November. The annual report comes during Islamophobia Awareness Month (IAM) and the racism row between Yorkshire County Cricket Club (YCCC) and ex-sports star Azeem Rafiq.
WYP has also recently launched a Sikh Association for Sikh police officers and members of the community.
In West Yorkshire, there is 204, or 3.4%, Asian police officers in the Force, and even fewer black officers, with just 23 officers in the estate.
In England and Wales, racist discrimination accounts for 2% of all allegations against Police and there were 91 allegations of discrimination based on religion or belief.
The complaints against WYP represents nine percent of discriminatory behaviour against all Police forces last year.
There were 109,151 allegations recorded in total by all forces in England and Wales in 2020/21. In this period, WYP logged 4904 allegations, the second-highest across all forces.
West Yorkshire Police logged the fifth-highest number of complaints In England and Wales, with 3,234 complaints in total last year.
Discrimination means treating someone badly or unfairly because of a characteristic they share with others. Unlawful discrimination is set out under the Equality Act 2010. It includes direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment, victimisation, discrimination arising from disability, and failure to make reasonable adjustments.
Discrimination can be based on racism, religion or belief, homophobia and biphobia, transphobia, disability discrimination, ageism, and sexism.
A complaint can contain multiple allegations, meaning the number of alleged bad behaviour by the police is usually higher.
There were 16 allegations put to the force across the year relating to sexual conduct, the joint third highest in the country.
Complaints and allegations made against the police can be dealt with informally, or formally under Schedule 3 of the Police Reform Act 2002.
The complaint is escalated to be dealt with formally if allegations are serious, or there is a lack of satisfaction with an informal resolution.
Most of the allegations against WYP 2,039 (54%) were dealt with formally, but then not investigated further. There were 1,634 (43%) allegations solved informally, with just 82 cases or 2% investigated after being treated formally.
Detective Superintendent Mark Long, of West Yorkshire Police’s Professional Standards Directorate, said: “Our officers and staff interact with thousands of people daily and the vast majority of members of the public are satisfied with the service they receive. It is vital though that there is an effective system in place should someone have reason to complain.
“West Yorkshire Police is one of the largest police forces in England and Wales, which is reflected in the number of complaints we have recorded in the past year; however when looked at by the number of complaints per 1,000 employees, we are in line with the national average.
“While in an ideal world we would want to be in a position where there are no upheld complaints, unfortunately, this is not the case. What is vital though is that we listen to what complainants are telling us and use it to improve our service in the future.
“We have done a lot of work internally to promote the Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Behaviour that are expected of everyone working in the police service. In recent years we have also introduced mandatory training in unconscious bias and abuse of position for a sexual purpose.”
