Launching the Birmingham Black Policing Charter
The Birmingham Black Policing Charter marks a significant moment for the city and its Black communities. It is one of five national pilot Charters being developed across England, designed to strengthen trust, accountability, and understanding between Black communities and policing.
At its heart, the Birmingham Black Policing Charter is about community cohesion. It recognises that the relationship between Black communities and the police has been shaped not only by individual encounters, but by history. Generational distrust has been reinforced through disproportionate enforcement practices, harmful interactions, and a lack of transparent accountability. This Charter exists to confront those realities honestly and to create a framework for meaningful, long-term change.
Rather than offering a one-off intervention, the Charter will establish a shared foundation for how policing and Black communities engage with one another in Birmingham. It will be community-informed, evidence-led, and publicly accountable. The Charter will focus on three core ambitions: embedding genuine community influence in decision-making, strengthening cultural understanding on all sides, and introducing clear systems of accountability that the public can see and understand. This means moving beyond consultation alone and towards structures where communities have a meaningful voice in shaping these priorities.
As part of this work, I am pleased to be joining The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APA) and Birmingham Race Impact Group (BRIG) as an Independent Consultant to support the development of the Birmingham Black Policing Charter. My role is to help establish the Charter’s foundations, its governance and first-year priorities.
The development phase will place a strong emphasis on listening and co-production. Youth voices, creative and cultural organisations, and community leaders will all play a central role in shaping the Charter. Alongside this, academic partners will support the use of data and evaluation to ensure the Charter’s impact is measurable and capable of informing long-term policy change.
The Charter is not about creating special treatment or parallel systems. It is about fairness, transparency, and shared responsibility. Black communities want to be treated with a consistent level of respect, and this Charter is an opportunity to work collectively towards that goal.
As the first of the national pilot areas, Birmingham has the chance to help shape what meaningful police–community accountability can look like across the country. The work ahead will not always be easy, but it is necessary. By grounding this Charter in honesty and community, Birmingham can take a confident step toward a safer, fairer future for all.
To the Future
Keiren Hamilton-Amos
Independent Consultant Lead