A CAMPAIGN to bring more black and Asian police officers on to the streets of Lancashire has attracted hundreds of applications.

But despite early successes, the number of responses to the pioneering recruitment drive has slowed down dramatically in recent months.

Chief Constable Pauline Clare has publicly announced one of her main aims for the current year is to make her force more representative of the community it serves.

The announcement came in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence murder and the high profile Macpherson inquiry and report.

Mrs Clare announced £160,000 will be invested in the scheme over the next 12 months in a bid to ensure it is a success.

A hard-hitting publicity campaign was launched in April centred around Blackburn, with its large Asian community.

A series of adverts were carried in the local press and on billboards around the town, but the campaign finished in June. Mrs Clare has also pledged to change the attitudes of her officers towards people from ethnic minorities and black and Asian recruits. Figures, which will be discussed at the police authority's personnel meeting on Tuesday, appear to show that in the first month of the publicity blitz, 91 applications were from members of the ethnic minorities. In May, the number increased to 97, but dropped sharply in June to 69.

The figure was almost halved in July when it fell to 39, which represents just eight per cent of potential applicants. They will be processed by police later in the year.

The police are determined to keep the momentum going and have recently appointed an ethnic minority liaison officer, who has already set up a number of new initiatives.

The Chief Constable was told by Home Secretary Jack Straw to dramatically increase the number of recruits from ethnic minorities.

The Blackburn MP set every constabulary in the country tough targets for the next decade as part of the ongoing shake-up.

Lancashire has 39 Asian and black officers out of a force of more than 3,000 and Mr Straw wants to see a dramatic improvement.

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