LEROY Alexander has been a constable with Strathclyde police for more than 24 years. When he started, he was one of just four black officers in the force. Now there are approximately 80.

Across Scotland the most up-to-date figures indicate there are, in total, 185 black and minority ethnic officers. The previous year the figure was exactly the same.

Mr Alexander, who is also chairman of Semper Scotland, the association which supports black and ethnic minority officers, says the force has changed but there is a lot further to go.

Screening recruits and trying to prevent racist officers from entering the force, a move which will go live next year, is just one part. Psychological testing, currently being validated, will be applied to all new recruits to assess them on a scale of normal reactions.

In future, it could be used to test for high levels of religious sectarianism, dishonesty or sexism.

Ultimately, this is likely to improve the public's perception of the police, but they still have to persuade members of the ethnic minority community to join the force.

"There may have been some back-slapping to say job well done, but it is actually only just starting, " said Mr Alexander. "If this was a 90-minute football match I would say we are not even 10 minutes into the game.

"Forces have done a lot but racism is unfortunately still alive and kicking in society and that is where the police recruits from."

After the Stephen Lawrence inquiry in 1999, there was a nationwide drive to recruit a proportionate number of officers from the ethnic minorities.

Between March 1999 - a month after the inquiry's report was published - and March 2003, the number of ethnic minority officers in Scotland increased by 82per cent.

However, the pace has slowed and only 0.7per cent of the police force is from an ethnic minority, compared with 2per cent of Scotland's population.

A Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) report published last year was commissioned after the racist behaviour revealed in The Secret Policeman, a BBC documentary. Overall, the review said, forces had made considerable progress but needed to "pick up the pace".

It also revealed there was still a perception that racism exists in the police. It found that many young people in ethnic minority communities would not consider applying to join the police force as a result.

Ali Jarvis, head of the CRE in Scotland, welcomed the progress made by the forces but warned more must be done. "There is more that could be done to reach out to different communities through either real or imagined boundaries, " she said, "but we have to be clear to identify between positive discrimination - which is illegal - and positive action.

"The balance is to create sufficient momentum that we don't just create fig leafs for inaction, but not that we push so hard that we implode."

Sandra Deslandes-Clark, chief executive of Semper Scotland, believes too little has been done and that the forces need to look at new ways to recruit and retain ethnic minority staff. "Nothing has visibly changed in the last year and the numbers are just not going up quickly enough, " she said. "We are still not connecting with the community. Perhaps we need to engage more with the minority ethnic staff we already have.

"Acpos is trying but needs to introduce new ways of attracting black people. Racism still exists in the police but it has gone underground."

Assistant chief constable John Neilson, the Acpos spokesman on race and asylum, said new research has been commissioned to ask young people from the black and ethnic minority communities what they think.

The research, commissioned jointly by Strathclyde and Lothian and Borders forces, will investigate the views on the police of thirdgeneration black and Asian youngsters and their sense of cultural identity.

He added: "The numbers have not improved significantly but we have a full-time unit specialising in ways to encourage young people from black and ethnic minority communities to join the police. I don't think quotas are the right way forward.

"Now it is time to speak to the young people in communities about their aspirations and improve communication. We think the report should be seen as an endorsement of the work we have been doing."