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WORLD WATCH APPLICANTS who speak languages such as Turkish, Bangladeshi and Hindi are likely to be considered by the British Home Office. Ministers hope that the plan to recruit foreign speakers, in preference to applicants who only speak English, will boost the number of non-white officers and improve race relations within minority communities. The initiative, revealed by Hazel Blears recently, the Minister in charge of Policing, Home Office, would involve adopting a system where foreign language-speaking applicants, such as Indians, Pakistanis, Turks or Bangladeshis would be recruited first, provided they passed entry requirements. Blears said: "If you have got a range of equivalent applicants you can then say I need these particular skills. I think we should examine what the legal position is at the moment and see are there ways we can make the existing law work better in terms of drawing people in. "I am thinking about genuine occupational qualifications where you can stipulate you need people with particular backgrounds. I met some police officers who were policing the Cypriot community in London and they were desperate for people who could speak the language. And they found when they got those officers the engagement with these communities was tremendous which then reflected in their ability to fight crime." The idea is likely to be criticised by some as a backdoor quota system that discriminates against white Britons. It was vital to be fair in recruitment to maintain public support of police. She said she was not in favour of quotas, but the language system had been used successfully in the US to recruit officers from ethnic minorities. Police forces are struggling to reach targets to reflect the ethnic breakdown of the people they police by 2009. This means that the
Metropolitan force, for example, must increase the number of ethnic
minority officers from about 6.5 per cent to 25 per cent — the
equivalent of 7,500 officers — in less than five years. — The
Independent |
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