‘Damning’ review of anti-Black racism within Met police ‘buried’ by force | Metropolitan police

A review of anti-Black racism within the Metropolitan police has been “buried” by the force, despite finding discrimination “baked into its HR systems”, the Guardian can reveal.

The internal review, commissioned by the Met from the consultancy HR Rewired, concluded that bias, racial stereotyping and inequity were woven through the force’s recruitment, promotion and grievance processes, affecting Black staff specifically.

The review’s report, 30 Patterns of Harm: a Structural Review of Systemic Racism within the London Metropolitan Police Service, warned that the Met’s ambition to become an “anti-racist organisation” was being undermined by its own internal culture.

The review found that performance systems rewarded familiarity over fairness, with Black staff given coded feedback such as “not quite ready” or “be a bit friendlier” and penalised for naming racism seen as a “reputational risk”.

Complaints of racism were often recast as “banter” or personality clashes, protecting perpetrators and leaving those who spoke up accused of “playing the race card” or being “too sensitive”.

The three-month review ran from May to July 2025. A companion guide was also produced, but neither has been published.

Louise Casey’s 2023 review, commissioned after the murder of Sarah Everard, found the Met “institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic” but treated racism as part of a wider cultural collapse.

By contrast, the HR Rewired review describes anti-Black racism as “baked into institutional design”, diagnosing the Met’s human resources systems as part of the problem.

The Met promised a two-year follow-up to assess progress since the Casey review; this was due in March 2025 but has not materialised.

Casey’s report called for external expertise in assisting with reform, which led, in part, to HR Rewired’s appointment after further internal concerns about the force’s London race action plan, which was unveiled in 2024, and plummeting confidence in the force among minority communities.

This month a BBC Panorama investigation exposed serving Met officers making racist and misogynistic remarks. In response, the Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, wrote to the home secretary pledging renewed efforts to tackle discrimination and referencing recent “significant progress” that the Met had made on race.

Yet the report by HR Rewired suggests that the culture of bias extends across the organisation, including within the HR department responsible for fairness and accountability. Over the years, Rowley has repeatedly denied that the Met is institutionally racist.

“Anti-Black outcomes in policing are not random. They have been built in,” the report says. “The Met is not asked to simply strengthen its response to harm, but to fundamentally reorient its system to interrupt harm before it occurs.”

Sources said the document was circulated among senior leaders in July 2025, yet no public acknowledgment or reform plan had followed despite internal discussions. Senior Met figures were understood to be concerned about how the findings would be received.

An insider with knowledge of the review told the Guardian: “If the leadership truly believed in reform, this would have been public long ago. Instead, it’s been buried.”

This review is thought to be the first internal inquiry commissioned by the Met to examine anti-Black racism in its structures, rather than being prompted by individual tragedies or scandals, such as the MacPherson report (1999) that called the Met “institutionally racist” after officers’ mishandling of the Stephen Lawrence case.

Andy George, the president of the National Black Police Association (NBPA), said he was aware that the review had been conducted.

“I heard about it in August, approached the Met police for a copy in September – but a member of the senior leadership team refused to share it with the NBPA and said it’s only being shared with senior management,” he said.

George said he had been told the review was “very damning” and had upset at least one senior officer. “The Met is continually trying to suppress anything that doesn’t fit in with the commissioner’s narrative that things are improving,” he said.

Lawrence Davies, a lawyer at Equal Justice Solicitors, has represented several race discrimination tribunal claims against the Met. He said the findings proved institutional racism in the Met had deepened.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan police said: “The commissioner has been clear that we have much more to do to tackle the systemic, cultural, leadership and regulatory failings that have allowed racism and other forms of discrimination to put down deep roots in the Met.

“That’s why we appointed Dr Shereen Daniels as our expert adviser, to help us confront difficult truths and guide meaningful change.

“Recently, the Met’s senior leaders engaged in a detailed discussion of the report. To ensure we give this the time, care and attention it deserves, we have begun sharing the report with both internal and external partners. Once we have gathered feedback from these wider stakeholders, we remain fully committed to publishing the report, upholding our principles of transparency and accountability.

“We want the Met to be an actively anti-racist organisation and this work builds on our drive to remove unsuitable officers and staff – the biggest corruption clear-out in British policing history.”

When approached for comment, Shereen Daniels, HR Rewired’s managing director who led the review, said: “The report sets out the recurring patterns of racial harm affecting Black Londoners, officers and volunteers, patterns evident for decades and raised repeatedly by individuals from many different backgrounds inside and outside the Met.

“Crucially, it also shows that even Black officers and staff are not protected from racial harm. Wearing the uniform offers no insulation. This reflects the Met’s culture, its everyday practices, its decision-making lens and, ultimately, its leadership.

“That is why racial harm recurs despite decades of review and reform efforts. This isn’t a story of a few ‘racist’ officers. Irrespective of well-intentioned yet ill-informed activity, it’s about an institution whose structures keep reproducing the same outcomes.”