Positive Action

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Working towards a representative workforce

Gwent Police has a strong commitment to valuing difference and encouraging inclusivity - both within our organisation and through the service we provide. One of the ways that we can ensure we deliver a service that meets the needs of the public is to have a workforce that reflects our communities. This means ensuring that we attract, recruit and retain a diverse workforce.

As part of our equality duty set out in the Equality Act 2010, Gwent Police has a responsibility to remove any disadvantages experienced by people with ‘protected characteristics’ (this means gender, race, religion, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy and maternity and marriage and civil partnership). We aim to achieve this through engagement with our diverse communities and through positive action initiatives.

What does this mean?

When it comes to recruitment, this means that we need to understand any barriers to joining the police for people that share protected characteristics and work to remove them. It also means that we need to understand the demographic of our workforce (for example, how many ethnic minority officers that we have) and if numbers are lower than they should be, work to change this.

What is positive action?

Positive action refers to the initiatives that we undertake to remove barriers and encourage under-represented groups to apply to join Gwent Police. There are several ways that we will do this, including (but not exclusively):

Partnering with local communities groups and organisations
Directing our advertising at communities that are currently under-represented
Coaching and mentoring
Offering contact with an existing police officer to learn from their experiences
Hosting awareness sessions on opportunities and recruitment within Gwent Police
Ride along scheme.

Police forces can use positive action in deciding to appoint an applicant or candidate from a group that shares a protected characteristic if they reasonably believe that the group is disadvantaged or under-represented in the workforce, or if their participation in an activity is disproportionately low.

However, police forces must not have a general policy of treating people with the relevant protected characteristic more favourably in connection with recruitment or promotion.

Positive action events

We run a programme of positive action awareness sessions throughout the year, for people from underrepresented groups, who are interested in becoming a Police Officer, Community Support Officer, Special Constable or a member of Police Staff.

We are particularly keen to receive applications from people that have a Black, Asian or other ethnic minority background (including non-visible ethnic minorities such as Czech, Slovak, Polish, Gypsy/Traveller people). We are also particularly interested in applications from people who identify as LGBT+ and disabled.

Join us to find out more about the roles available and what it is like to work for Gwent Police. You will have the opportunity to meet serving officers and staff, hear about their experiences and find out about the different career opportunities open to you.