Met chief says police stations need crèches

Every main police station in London should have a crèche to attract more women into the police service, the head of Scotland Yard said yesterday.

Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, plans to open the first crèche at Hendon training college, north London, within six months.

Speaking at a national conference for senior women police officers, Sir John said far more needed to be done to increase the "pitifully" low number of female officers – about 17 per cent of the Met's 27,750 officers.

He argued that the Met had "taken its eye off the ball" over the issue of female recruitment, concentrating instead on ethnic-minority officers.

He said having a crèche at Hendon would help to attract men and women recruits with children. He also suggested having "family rooms" in lodgings for recruits taking part in the 18-week course at Hendon. In the past 11 months, 477 of the 2,329 recruits trained at Hendon have been women.

He told the 250 delegates at the conference: "What we are looking to do is have a crèche at Hendon. It's one of the breakthroughs we must make." He said that he hoped to agree on the crèche in the next four to five months. Later he stated: "The vision would be at the end to have crèches at the major police stations."

On the number of women officers in the Met, Sir John said: "Seventeen per cent is not good enough. It should be up to 30 per cent plus. We have taken out eye off the ball in terms of gender."

A delegate from the British Transport Police said many women officers with infants had complained about the lack of childcare facilities.

But the suggestion of crèches at London's main police stations was dismissed by Sergeant Judy Redford, who represents sergeants in the Met and City of London forces. She said: "I think a lot of police officers would be horrified and would not want their children to be anywhere near a police station."

Sgt Redford also argued that the long distances many officers travelled, combined with their shift patterns, which mean irregular hours and a very late or very early start, made crèches at police stations an impractical idea.

However, she did support the creation of a crèche at the training college.