A reform of public services in order to reduce admin is \u201cabsolutely needed\u201d, the Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation has said, but he added that officers will want to know what it will mean in practice.<\/p>\n
A Government review found that some public servants are forced to waste a day each week on administrative tasks. The improvements the Chancellor is considering could free up over 38 million police hours each year \u2013 almost 750,000 hours every week \u2013 for police officers to perform frontline duties.<\/p>\n
South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said: \u201cThis is absolutely needed and it\u2019s something that we\u2019ve been saying for years. But I want to see what this looks like in reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are already, in this force, implementing Right Care, Right Person, which is now going national. It\u2019s about getting the appropriate public authority to deal with the stuff they should be dealing with and leaving the police to stuff that we deal with. Hopefully that will free up time for officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s also the work going on about disclosure, from our Detective colleagues in the Federation. These are simple wins that the Government could look at and deal with very quickly, but it\u2019s got to keep going beyond that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to stop with the mindless bureaucracy that exists every time an officer arrests somebody. The public would be shocked if they knew how many hours it took to arrest somebody for stealing a bottle of whisky from a supermarket. That\u2019s an officer off the frontline for potentially six hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething has to be done to bring things back down to basics. That includes making the file system simpler for our police colleagues across the force, and also just cutting down on some of the red tape.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve added that he hoped these changes could return officers to more proactive policing.<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cOur officers are doing the absolute best they can, but with the resources we\u2019ve got, all we\u2019re doing is chasing our tails. When I first joined the police 20 years ago, you had some capacity to proactively target an area where there\u2019s nuisance youths or there\u2019s drug dealing. That kind of stuff for the frontline just doesn\u2019t exist at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re responding to everything rather than proactively trying to do stuff. What this would do is free up time for officers to go out and be what the public want them to be. To be bobbies on the beat \u2013 the vast majority of the public want to see police officers out, snooping around, doing our job. If people are acting suspiciously and you\u2019ve got grounds to search them, 99% of cops would love the opportunity to do that. But as soon as they consider it, the radio goes again.\u201d<\/p>\n