Muammar Al Khadafi

Devon and Cornwall police have stumped up nearly £25,000 in funding to the Black Police Officers Association according to information obtained under a Freedom of Information request.

2009/10 saw the force pay out £9,360, 2010/11 the sum of £8,000, and so far for 2011/12 an estimated figure of £7,030 is provided although this is "yet to be fully allocated".

It may not seem a huge amount, but these figures do not include the cost of officers or police staff time, so the true expenditure is likely to be far higher.

At a time of excruciating cutbacks which will see far less officers on our streets, is this money well spent?

The same freedom of information request also tells us that Devon and Cornwall do not currently have a Muslim Police Officers Association, unlike Surrey Police who have set up the Surrey Association of Muslim Police (SAMP). Watch this space, it's bound to happen sooner or later.

We're also informed that the Devon & Cornwall Police Black Police Association has changed its name to the Devon & Cornwall Ethnic Minority Police Association. So much more inclusive.

A census carried out by the force in 2010, to which 62.5% of staff responded, told us that 86.6% of those staff who responded were White British. The same census revealed that 381 staff members out of 4073 who responded considered themselves to be transgender, making for a 12.8% transgender workforce. Another 12.2% or 363 people preferred not to answer that question.

Someone telling porky pies maybe, or extra training needed so the police staff know what transgender is? Either way, more of your money wasted on a census which reveals nothing save for inaccuracy.

Even so, more censuses are anticipated, as, according to the police, "The high return rate and the quality of the data that we got for the majority of the questions has shown that census based monitoring of our workforce is achievable and will become part of the way we obtain an overview of the makeup of our staff in the future."

At even the best of financial times spending all of this money pandering to diversity and minority would be hard to justify, but given current circumstances there is simply no way that it is acceptable.