Jake Berry – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jake Berry on 2014-03-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken in the last 12 months to reduce the burden of administration for the police.

Damian Green

This Government has acted so that the police focus on fighting crime and not processing paperwork. Our work which has already taken place to reduce bureaucracy could see up to 4.5 million hours of police time saved across all forces every year – the equivalent of over 2,100 officers back on the beat.

In the last 12 months we have established the Police Innovation Fund to support innovative delivery approaches to policing and free up officer time to fight crime. We have extended the use of police-led prosecutions, reducing bureaucracy for officers dealing with high-volume offences. We have also introduced an improved approach to dealing with Missing People so resources are deployed more intelligently.

We are producing digital case files to improve file build and reduce paperwork and we are supporting all forces to develop digital solutions so officers can submit information via mobile devices and not have to return to the station to fill in forms.