Metropolitan Police publishes Dr Shereen Daniels’ independently commissioned report into racism in the Met

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has today published an independent report by Dr Shereen Daniels, commissioned by the MPS to examine how the organisation has responded to long-standing evidence of racism and discrimination. The report was commissioned to assess the effectiveness and impact of the ‘London Race Action Plan’, the Met’s strategic framework for becoming an anti-racist organisation.

The Met welcomes the report in full and recognises the scale of the challenges it sets out. This is a moment that calls for reflection, and further change. Becoming an anti-racist police service is not just the right thing to do, it is essential to building trust, improving operational effectiveness, and keeping Londoners safe. Tackling racism and discrimination remains a key priority in the New Met for London Plan. Sustainable change means addressing deep-rooted problems, not offering surface-level fixes.

Dr Daniels’ report draws on more than forty years of evidence showing how racism has shaped the Met’s relationship with Black communities and affected Black officers and staff. It challenges the organisation to face up to these realities. The report identifies thirty patterns of harm that go beyond individual behaviour and point to systemic issues. These are linked to wider societal inequalities that affect how Black Londoners, particularly young Black Londoners, experience policing. While these issues extend beyond the Met, the organisation accepts its responsibility to lead this change.

The Met will work with partners across education, housing, and health to address the wider inequalities that intersect with policing – for example, the disproportionate exclusion of Black children from school and its link to increased police contact. The Met will not stand behind shared responsibility as an excuse for in action.

While the report focuses on Black communities and staff, the Met recognises that many of the patterns of harm identified may also apply to other minoritised groups. This report signals a broader need for reflection and action across the organisation to ensure equity and fairness for all. Dr Daniels’ review builds on the evidence base identified by Baroness Casey, examining how the institutional systems and leadership practices within the Met sustain the conditions that previous reviews have described. It represents a continuation of scrutiny, moving from description to diagnosis.

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, said:

“Dr Daniels’ report is powerful. It calls out that further systemic, structural, cultural change is needed. I asked for a review focused on the Met and Black communities which challenges us to go further in becoming an actively anti-racist organisation. London is a unique global city, and the Met will only truly deliver policing by consent when it is inclusive and anti-racist.

“Initiatives like New Met for London and the London Race Action Plan are helping us make progress. The level of trust in the Met that Black Londoners report is improving - by 10% in two years - but still lags behind others. In surveys, confidence in local policing is higher than average. The picture is complex and there is still much more to do. But more important than any survey, is hearing how deeply this report resonates with Black colleagues and communities. We remain committed to listening, learning, and acting on their concerns.

“This cultural change will require relentless effort and innovation. Where we have seen operational improvements, such as in increased numbers of offenders being brought to justice, it is because we have radically looked at our training, policies, and applied new technologies. Cultural change will need all that, and more.

"Our expectation is that leaders will drive this change with their teams and they will be held accountable. When it comes to any individual discrimination, including racism, our commitment is clear: we are continuing to deliver the largest corruption clear-out in British policing history to remove those who do not belong.

“Working with Black communities and colleagues whose experiences are reflected in Dr Daniels’ report, we will be applying the same resolve to go after the patterns of discrimination that show up in our operational work, and within the organisation by identifying and addressing their root causes.”

Dr Shereen Daniels, author of the report, said:

“Systemic racism is not a matter of perception. For almost fifty years, reviews of the Metropolitan Police have documented the harm experienced by Black Londoners, officers and staff. 30 Patterns of Harm turns the lens around. It examines the institution itself, showing how the Met’s systems, leadership, governance and culture produce racial harm while protecting the organisation from reform.

“The decision not to include extensive personal accounts of racism was an ethical one. Repeatedly mining Black people’s experiences of trauma, knowing those testimonies are often disbelieved or softened for comfort, allows institutions like the Met to appear attentive while doing little of substance.

“True accountability begins with specificity. When institutions speak in broad terms of “ethnic minorities” or “diversity,” those most harmed disappear from view. This work begins where harm is sharpest, because that is where structural change must start. Anti-Blackness is the clearest indicator of organisational dysfunction. The same systems that sustain racial harm against Black people also enable other forms of harm. Confronting this is not an act of exclusion but a necessary foundation for safety, fairness and justice for everyone.

“This was a diagnostic inquiry, designed to identify causation rather than assign blame. The evidence underpinning my analysis came from the Met’s internal materials and its public record, including policies, data, transcripts of public meetings, press statements and responses to high-profile racial incidents, cross-checked with previous public-facing reviews and inquiries. Viewed together, these reveal how the organisation’s systems and culture align to maintain, rather than dismantle, the conditions that cause racial harm.

“This report is wholly independent. The Met had no role in designing the methodology, shaping the analysis or approving the findings.

“For the Met, the challenge ahead is to build the leadership discipline to face what the report has revealed and act on its findings in a way that protects the public rather than the institution.”

As part of this work, the Met will take time to reflect on Dr Daniels’ findings and resist a reactive response. Instead, we will open meaningful discussions around a set of key themes, including accountability, structural change, equity, internal bias, and the use of police powers, to shape our next steps. This approach will be informed by previous reviews, including the Casey Review and the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, and by feedback from our workforce and communities.”

We will also examine the structural drivers of disproportionality in policing outcomes for Black Londoners. In doing so, we will engage with those who offer support and challenge, and commit to broader consultation with Black communities and other minoritised groups to co-design the next phase of the London Race Action Plan, or a different approach. The Mets ambition will be focused on tackling root causes.

There are signs of progress. Confidence among minoritised Londoners has risen by 10% in two years. However, the Met acknowledges that gaps remain between minoritised groups and wider Londoners, and that these must be closed. Today, 74% of Londoners say they trust the Met, and 81% believe it is doing a good or fair job. While encouraging, these figures do not signal that the job is done.