Angela Watkinson

Conservative Party | Upminster

Police red tape

July 6 2009

Official Home Office data appear to suggest its moves to cut bureaucracy are working, with police spending a larger proportion of their time on what is called "front line policing".
However, this definition includes time spent on "incident-related" paperwork, such as preparing files for court cases or filling in stop and search forms. This has actually increased by a fifth in just five years, new figures show.

It means that almost half of officers' time is now taken up by dealing with paperwork, red tape and other duties away from patrolling the streets. MPs accused ministers of using "sleight of hand" to disguise the fact that police officers are increasingly chained to their desks.

Angela Watkinson, MP for Upminster, said: "These figures will come as no surprise to any front line police officer, but it just beggars belief that the Government is yet again manipulating figures to make a false claim that things are getting better. We'll only tackle policing problems properly when we really do get rid of all the red tape they have to deal with, and not when Ministers pretend that's happening."

According to the Home Office, the proportion of time police spend on the front line has increased from 63.6 per cent in 2003/04 to 64.9 per cent in 2007/08 - the most recent period available.

But incident-related paperwork over the same period has increased from 10.3 per cent of an officer's time to 12.4 per cent.

It means the amount of time they spend on what many would regard as traditional front line duties - such as patrolling the streets and attending incidents - has actually fallen from 53.3 per cent to just 52.5 per cent.

That also means officers now spend almost half of their time carrying out some form of paperwork and other duties away from the front line.

It comes despite a series of initiatives in recent years by ministers and chief constables to slash the burden of red tape and paperwork to free up officers' time.