Police red tape 'should be cut'

Jacqui Smith has acknowledged that police bureaucracy should be reduced following allegations that fewer officers on the streets has contributed to an increase in knife crime.

Shadow home affairs minister David Ruffley asked if the drop from 19.1 per cent to 17.1 per cent in the proportion of officer time spent on patrol had "in any way contributed to rising knife crime".

The home secretary said she did not think so, and pointed out that the government figures cited by Ruffley also showed that less time was being spent on paperwork.

She told MPs: "We have a more visible, a more reassuring police force than we had before and we have police officers that are able to spend their time doing those things that make a difference to the public, and I commend them for their efforts."

However, Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Winterton said officers had spent too long filling in "stop and account" forms.

"The latest figures show that patrol officers are so burdened by form-filling and paperwork that they're forced to spend exactly the same amount of time on paperwork in an office as they do out on patrol," he said.

"Shouldn't that be stopped? We want police on the beat doing the job the public expect them to do."

Smith backed the review by chief inspector of constabulary Sir Ronnie Flanagan and said the government would scrap the controversial form.

And she said she "wholeheartedly agreed" that red tape should be reduced.