Gender pay gap 2023

‘As a woman in a senior leadership role I have first-hand experience of how tough it can be at times working in a male dominated environment. I don’t under-estimate how some women have had their confidence knocked and the impact it has had on their career progression. However, I am pleased to have witnessed significant change in recent years. Support for women and understanding of the many barriers faced is changing. There is still a long way to go but I am confident the plans we have and the commitment from all senior leaders will continue to deliver progress and help us to achieve better representation across all areas, grades and ranks of our policing family.”

Assistant Chief Constable Nikki Leaper - Contact and Strategic Planning

Career Progression

We continue to make progress and increase the support being offered to women to support career progression. During 2022/23 we have made strides forward to improve the representation at rank which has seen success at Sergeant, Inspector, Superintendent and Chief Officer ranks.

One of the key elements of this, is to first encourage women to commence a career in policing, and we have already seen success in this area. Whilst we need to continue to encourage women to join us, we also want to support those women who are already part of our organisation to progress their careers. To help us to do this our Positive Action Team has developed a programme of support to assist police officers to achieve success in the promotion process.

In November 2020 we launched our first programme, available to all those from underrepresented groups, who are qualified to sergeant rank. Of those who engaged with support and went on to sit their promotions board interview, a fantastic 82.5 per cent achieved success.

Following the success with the first programme, we listened to feedback and adapted the approach to launch an  offering for those seeking to progress to inspector rank. Below you can see the high-level outline of what was on offer.  We continue to share our approach and support other Police Forces across UK policing.

Promotion Support pipeline

1. Information webinars -
2. Positive Action Registration -
3. Unlocking Potential Workshops -
4. Online Support Programme -
5. Mentoring Programme

During recent years the initiatives delivered within Devon and Cornwall Police to support women in police staff roles has helped us to achieve parity with female population across all police staff grades, we remain incredibly proud to have delivered and maintained this. However, it is still the case that women occupy the majority of roles in the lower grades. During 2023 we developed an initiative in line with the national “Learning At Work Week” to support police staff career progression aiming to encourage and support women to identify career development opportunities and engage with their own career advancement. This great work continues to be a focus for us.