Talented ethnic and female recruits will be able to go straight into the top ranks of the Met under a new Home Office scheme announced today.
The fast-track system will allow police forces to hire business people, former military officers and other able outsiders as chief constables or superintendents without requiring them to work their way through the ranks.
The main aim is to improve the quality of police leadership by making it easier for professionals who have already succeeded in other careers to move into forces.
But policing minister Damian Green said that another key objective would be to improve the diversity of the senior ranks of the Met and other forces amid concern that there are currently too few ethnic and women officers in such posts.
“One of the beneficial effects of this will be an increase in the diversity of police leadership, which is badly needed,” the minister told the Evening Standard.
“The Met and the current Commissioner have been working very hard on diversity and it’s a difficult task, but more is still needed. This will help to accelerate promotion to the higher ranks.”
The reforms, which will also permit foreign citizens such as the former New York police chief Bill Bratton to lead the Met in future, follow a report on improving policing by the Chief Inspector of Constabulary Tom Winsor. He said that hiring outsiders for top police jobs would “enrich” forces.
