Police launch ‘gender agenda’

A
project to promote the role of female officers in the police was launched in
Birmingham yesterday.

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Office minister Bob Ainsworth, who has a responsibility for policing and
community safety, attended the launch of The Gender Agenda – a document
outlining the main issues and dilemmas affecting women officers.

The
Gender Agenda highlights outdated practices and suggests ways to modernise the
police service. Only 16 per cent of the police service are women compared with
44 per cent of the UK’s general working population.

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It
is calling for a gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation balance that takes
into account the number of women in the population, for a working environment
and equipment that enables women officers to do their job professionally, and
for the service to demonstrate that it values women officers.

“The
Gender Agenda is not about ‘men bad, women good’ or political correctness for
its own sake, it’s about common sense. We want to help individual women
officers maximise their potential which in turn leads to benefits for the whole
organization – increasing forces’ performance and so improving the service we
offer to the public,” said Assistant Chief Constable Julie Spence of Thames
Valley Police.