IN THE wake of heightened conversations about policing standards in the UK, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing have announced they are seeking help for the creation of a new race and inclusion plan.

Now, they’re recruiting for the chair of a new Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board, which hopes to ensure this initiative is not like so many others, that have fallen short of achieving racial justice.

The Voice spoke exclusively to board member, Martin Hewitt, on what this new plan means for the future of policing in the black community.

How will you ensure that black people are included in your processes and strategy for this plan throughout?

You and you readers know that we have a challenging relationship with some black communities – there’s about a 20% gap between white communities and black communities in terms of trust.

In terms of black voices, we had a meeting where all the leaders of the police forces around the country came together last summer, and we had three or four of their own black members of staff. I involved the National Black Police Association, her Majesty’s Inspectorate Constabulary, the Home Office and Wendy Williams who took part in the Windrush review.

We also involved community leaders and we heard the voices of black staff communities. That’s led us to the work that we’re doing now by starting this Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board.

For our chair, we want somebody who has real credibility in the black community, and who can be there to check and challenge the work that we are doing.

With the creation of the board and the pending advertisement for a chair, how many black people are represented on the board itself?

We do not have enough black chief officers and that’s something that we’ve recognised. One of the things that we are doing is inviting three of our black chief officers to apply and ask to join the programme board to go alongside the Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board.

We’ll also have a stakeholder group that will drive the work we are doing and represent black officers and staff internally.

I am a white man and I think it’s important that we bring people into this work that have the lived experiences.

We can only be judged on this by how many black voices and black faces that are making the decisions. That’s the only way it will get the credibility that it absolutely has to have if it’s going to be successful.

Sometimes the lack of progress makes it seem the police are unaware of the problems our community faces – are you aware of our key concerns?

First, we’re looking at internal culture and equal career opportunities. Then we have use of powers that will deal with some of the very iconic issues in the black community. Stop and search is obviously the most iconic issue between police and young black men. Our third area will be around community engagement and community relations.

In this country, we police by consent so we need the legitimacy, trust and confidence of communities. You need people that are going to be witnesses for you, and work with you to keep communities safe.

For many of our black communities, that trust and confidence is not where it needs to be.

Will you have powers to hold racist police officers accountable in a way the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) does not?

The IOPC is a completely independent organisation from policing. This Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board is not going to look at individual cases like they do with issues such as deaths after police contact or custody. The board’s role instead is to work on the challenges we’ve got in terms of trust and confidence in black communities and make sure black staff feel included.

However, I fully understand that the IOPC results are not always what people would want.

What do you say to the members of our community who are tired of empty police reform promises?

I absolutely understand and expect a degree of scepticism from people who have heard this before and seen these programmes before.

All I would say is we’ve developed this over the last few months by listening very closely to communities, individuals both inside and outside [the force].

With the appointment of a new chair, this person will have a voice to publicly to hold us to account. I think that demonstrates our determination, which I think is really critical to the whole thing.

The final thing I would say is that you and your readers must judge us on our success. I can say all the words and talk about what we plan to do and all of that it is genuine. But ultimately, we will be judged on our actions and that’s why we are calling it a plan of action.