Hertfordshire Constabulary Gender Pay and Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting 2024/25

I am pleased to introduce Hertfordshire Constabulary’s Gender Pay Gap and Ethnicity Pay Gap Report for 2024/25. This report reflects our ongoing commitment to transparency, fairness, and continuous improvement across our organisation. As an organisation, we are dedicated to ensuring that every member of our workforce feels valued, supported, and able to thrive regardless of gender, ethnicity or background.

This year’s data shows areas of meaningful progress, alongside challenges that require sustained focus. While we have seen positive trends in female representation at several ranks and continued narrowing of pay gaps in some staff and officer categories, we also recognise that workforce numbers have decreased overall. While numbers routinely fluctuate year on year, they do underscore the importance of creating an environment where people choose to join and remain with Hertfordshire Constabulary.

I am encouraged by the narrowing of the gender pay gap in the police officer and staff categories however I note with some caution that the combined figures indicate a slight increase. While the overall trend over recent years is positive, we still have some way to go to reach parity and so we must continue in the development of female officers and staff at more senior ranks and roles.

Equally, publishing ethnicity pay data for a third consecutive year, shows our continuing commitment to building a more inclusive organisation. While some gaps have narrowed, others highlight an ongoing need to strengthen pathways into specialist roles and leadership positions for colleagues from underrepresented groups.

Closing our pay gaps requires more than reporting however. It requires action. We must continue to ensure that opportunities are not just available, but also attractive and attainable to all. That is why we continue to invest in leadership development for both officers and staff, talent identification and supportive promotion processes. We continue to strengthen our recruitment and outreach efforts to ensure our workforce better reflects the communities we serve. And we are working closely with staff networks, stakeholder groups and the national policing through the Police Race Action Plan to address issues in policing that that disproportionately affect non-White communities.

I would like to thank every officer, staff member, volunteer and member of the public who contributes towards making Hertfordshire Constabulary a fairer and more representative organisation. Your work and commitment remain essential as we continue to evolve and improve.

We publish this data with openness and with confidence in the direction we are taking. Our goal is clear: a workforce that is reflective of our diverse county, and a culture where everyone has equal opportunity to succeed.

James Cook

Director of Resources
Hertfordshire Constabulary

 

Gender representation

As reported in previous years the breakdown in gender demographics for police officers and police staff shows that we continue to have a higher proportion of female police staff to males and female police officers have experienced a drop in numbers. In 2024/25, the number of female officers has decreased by 4.36% compared to the last reporting year. A similar trend is observed among male officers, with a decrease of 6.41%. 

However the proportions of male and females between the two groups have shown a slight improvement.

	2024 - 2025	2023-2024	2022-2023	2021-2022	2020-2021	2019-2020
Female Officers	853	891	858	774	745	691
Male Officers	1450	1546	1511	1463	1446	1381
Female Staff	1113	1152	1135	1122	1131	1097
Male Staff	570	584	572	590	634	646

 

Officer Female proportion	37.03%
Officer Male proportion	62.97%
Staff Female proportion	66.13%
Staff Male proportion	33.87%

 

Breakdown of workforce

Examining the female and male split at each officer rank, we have seen a constant increase in the percentage of female constables within the force in the last five years. In 2018/19 31.76% of the constable rank were female. This increased in 2020/21 to 34% and in 2022/23 to 40.07%. This reporting year we see that both the male and female constable ranks have decreased in numbers with the females making up 40.65% which is not dissimilar to last year’s figures (chief inspector and above) females make up 29.69% of the population which is slightly higher than the 2023/24 figure of 27.71%.

 

Officer Head Count
	2024-2025		2023-2024		2022 -2023		2021-2022		2020-2021		2019-2020
	Females	Males	Females	Males	Females	Males	Females	Males	Females	Males	Females	Males
Constable	686	1002	729	1080	714	1068	636	1046	606	1056	423	865
Sergeant	106	299	99	314	86	291	89	271	83	258	90	248
Inspector	47	129	40	92	36	94	28	92	36	81	29	78
Senior ranks	19	45	23	60	22	58	21	54	20	51	18	45

 

Senior officer promotion progress

At our Chief Officer levels our female Assistant Chief Constable Genna Telfer remained in post in this year. Assistant Chief Constable Telfer has been in post since 23 March 2020. In addition, our female Assistant Chief Officer Cat Hemmings remained in post in this year. Assistant Chief Officer Hemmings was in post from 11 April 2022 to 30 September 2025, prior to external secondment. Additionally, Assistant Chief Constable Telfer was temporarily promoted to Acting Deputy Chief Constable between 22 April 2025 and 18 May 2025, with further opportunity for female Chief Superintendent Ruth Dodsworth who was temporarily promoted to Acting Assistant Chief Constable between 16 September 2024 and 1 June 2025. These changes have increased female representation in our Senior Leadership Team.  We are pleased to say that this continues the trend of being able to have a positive female representation at the most senior ranks within our force.

 

Gender Pay Gap reporting

Median: The mid-point in the range.

Mean: The whole range expressed as an average.

 

Police staff and police officers combined (includes all staff and officer levels)

The median gender pay gap is 18.22%.

The mean gender pay gap is 11.58%.

 

Compared to the 2023/24 data, the mean gender pay gap has increased slightly by 1.5% and the median gender pay gap has remained unchanged.

 

Police staff and police officers separated

When we split out the data for staff and officers we can see that this does change our force’s dynamic:

The median pay gap for police staff is 5.33% and for police officers is 1.11%.

The mean pay gap for staff is 5.81% and for officers it is 3.79%.

 

Compared to the 2023/24 data, the staff only mean pay gap has  narrowed by 2.22% whereas the median staff only pay gap has reduced by a much smaller amount of 0.15%. The officer-only mean pay gap has reduced by 1.99% and the median pay gap has also reduced quite significantly by 8.67%.

Employee quartiles (staff and officers combined)

	Quartile 1	Quartile 2	Quartile 3	Quartile 4
Male Proportion	37.15%	42.23%	58.78%	64.56%
Female Proportion	62.85%	57.77%	41.22%	35.44%

 

Female representation increased by 2.16% in Q1, leading to a decrease in the male population. However, Q2 saw minimal change. Compared to the 2023/24 data, Q3 shows a slight decline of 0.64% in the proportion of female employees, while Q4 has remained largely unchanged.

 

The bonus gender pay gap

For police officers, there is Home Office national guidance, introduced in 2003, that allows forces to make one-off bonus payments of between £50 and £500 when an officer has carried out work of an outstandingly demanding, unpleasant or important nature. Specific to firearms officers, there is also a national agreement for bonus payments to be made as an agreed retention incentive. Though paid as a bonus payment in previous years these are now being paid as a temporary Targeted Variable Payment (TVP) which has been in place since 2017. The value of these firearms payments in remain at the same value and can be up to a maximum total of £2,000 per officer annually. The situation remains unchanged that most firearm officers are male, and this continues to affect the bonus gender pay gap data. The TVP scheme allows forces to recognise specialist skills and to assist with retaining officers in these types of roles which now includes detectives as well as other specialist units and superintendents.

 

Police staff are eligible to receive honoraria payments for work that is over and above their normal duties and/or of particular importance or quality, and payments require formal sign off to review the rationale for the payments.

 

Staff and officers combined

In comparison to 2023/24, the mean bonus pay gap has decreased by 3.16%. The bonus median pay gap has reduced to a difference of 6.67% from the previous years’ 14.58%.

 

	Number of Recipients	% of males and females who received a bonus	Median Payment	Mean Payment
Male	397	19.03%	£2000.00	£2063.35
Female	405	19.74%	£1866.64	£2009.22

 

Officer bonuses

The officer median pay gap is now in favour of female officers, showing a pay gap of –6.67%. In comparison to the last reporting year, the officer only mean bonus pay gap shows a slight decrease of 0.83%

 

Staff honoraria

The staff only mean pay gap has decreased significantly from the previous year by 15.93%. The staff only median bonus pay gap shows that females received less than their male counter parts in honorarium payments in this year, whereas in 2023/24 they received more.

 

Ethnicity Pay Gap reporting

We are starting to record the ethnicity pay gap data for our collaborated Forces.  To do this we have used the gender pay data requirement and redefined it by ethnic groups. This is our third year of publishing, and our findings are set out below.

In Herts the breakdown of the population and hourly rates is as follows:

Herts
	Any White origin	Any Asian origin	Any Black origin	Any Mixed origin	Any Other origin	Prefer not to say	Unknown
Combined	3588	132	50	81	15	74	46	Total: 3986
Mean – hourly rate	£22.51	£21.44	£19.80	£22.49	£19.11	£20.42	£21.97
Median – hourly rate	£21.51	£20.07	£18.97	£21.40	£18.08	£17.92	£20.62

 

The following calculations are based on comparing the all-White origin group with all the other ethnic origin groups combined excluding those who prefer not to say and are unknown.

 

Police staff and police officers combined (includes all staff and officer levels, excluding prefer not to say and origin unknown)

The median ethnicity pay gap is 7.15%.

 

The mean ethnicity pay gap is 5.58%.

 

Compared to the last reporting year, we can see that the mean ethnicity pay gap has largely remained unchanged.

The median ethnicity pay gap has reduced by 4.5%.

 

Police staff and police officers separated

As with gender pay, when we split out the data for staff and officers we can see that this does change our Forces dynamic:

The median ethnicity pay gap for police staff is 5.80% and for police officers is 36.96%.

The mean ethnicity pay gap for staff is 8.26% and for police officers is 16.80%.  

 

When compared to 2023/24 the mean ethnicity officer pay gap has largely remained unchanged.  Whereas the median officer ethnicity pay gap has decreased by 3.93%. The staff mean ethnicity pay gap has reduced by 1.32% whereas the median ethnicity pay gap has increased marginally.

 

 

Employee quartiles (staff and officers combined)

		Quartile 1	Quartile 2	Quartile 3	Quartile 4
2024/25	Any White origin	86.45%	89.17%	92.58%	91.87%
	Any Non-white origin	9.44%	7.32%	5.22%	5.92%
	Prefer not to say and Unknown (Origin unknown)	4.12%	3.51%	2.21%	2.21%
		Quartile 1	Quartile 2	Quartile 3	Quartile 4
2023/24	Any White origin	85.43%	90.13%	92.81%	91.47%
	Any Non-white origin	10.16%	6.61%	4.79%	6.14%
	Prefer not to say and Unknown (Origin unknown)	4.41%	3.26%	2.40%	2.40%

 

In comparison the quartiles display little variation.  The slight variances appear due to minimal staff movement.

The bonus ethnicity pay gap

The arrangements for the ethnicity bonus pay remains the same as that for gender pay.  This date has been redefined by ethnic groupings to show the pay gap differences. 

 

Staff and officers combined

The median bonus ethnicity pay gap is 0.00%

The mean bonus ethnicity pay gap is -6.70%

The combined bonus ethnicity pay gap data shows a good balance between the white and all ethnic groups.

 

Staff and officers separated

The median ethnicity bonus pay gap for police staff only is -128.31% and for police officers only is -24.07%.

 

The mean ethnicity bonus pay gap for staff is -51.57% and for officers it is -19.65%.