Bureaucracy prevents officers from fighting crime

Date published: 24/04/2007

Greater Manchester Police has admitted it is "concerned" about the amount of bureaucracy which can prevent officers from fighting crime but said it is working to tackle the problem.

GMP officers are spending more than a third of their working lives training and doing paperwork instead of patrolling the streets catching criminals.

Figures published by the Home Office revealed that GMP spent 38.8 per cent of time filling in forms and carrying out other administrative duties in 2005-6.

That left 61.2 per cent for "frontline duties" — including making arrests.

The Home Office has said that by April 2008 the force must improve its record to 72.1 per cent.

A GMP spokesman said it had been "very successful" in increasing the amount of time officers spend on front-line duties.

He said: "A robust review of non-operational posts currently undertaken by police officers identified more than 400 posts which could potentially be civilianised, allowing officers to return to frontline duties.

"Many of these are in the process of being civilianised.

"The introduction of neighbourhood policing has seen an increase in visibility on the streets and we also have 764 police community support officers who are available to support front-line duties, although these are not included in the main element of frontline percentage calculations."

GMP says the formula used to calculate the percentage of time spent on frontline duties is "extremely complex" as is the work being undertaken to tackle the issue.

And despite police chiefs saying bureaucracy was a problem, the force remained committed to increasing the number of police officers and other staff directly engaged in "fighting crime, protecting people".

The spokesman added: "We believe that the recent decision to allow chief constables the flexibility to civilianise posts which do not require operational police officers within the criteria for the Crime Fighting Fund will assist us in doing this.

"We review annually and take every opportunity to increase frontline staffing within the current rules."

The Government has asked Sir Ronnie Flanagan, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary, to carry out a review of how police time is spent.