Policing minister promises shake-up to cut red tape

14 April 2023

Suffolk Police Federation has welcomed a Government pledge to get officers back on the street by cutting red tape and bureaucracy. 

Policing minister Chris Philp said a planned shake-up of the way crimes are logged would mean officers were no longer required to record frivolous allegations of offensive speech or social media rows as crimes.

He said his planned reforms would also bring an end to duplication in recording crime, ensuring that multiple offences for a single incident can in future be recorded under one principal offence.

Steps would also be taken to reduce the number of hours police spent dealing with mental health cases or filling in for other emergency services.

Mr Philp unveiled the proposals in a speech at the Law Society in London in which he said officers were not the “thought police” and that being rude or insulting should not be treated as a “police matter”.

He said changing Home Office counting rules on how reported incidents were logged would slash “unnecessary red tape” and free up more time to investigate crime.

And he accepted that police officers should not be expected to deal with mental health cases or act as a stop gap for other emergency services.

Suffolk Police Federation chair Darren Harris welcomed the proposals but urged the Government to go further.

He said: “This is certainly a step in the right direction but the amount of time officers waste on admin cannot be overstated.

“Our branch secretary Ben Hudson has been campaigning tirelessly on areas such as disclosure and charging that are still bogged down in bureaucracy and also in urgent need of reform so that needs to be addressed by the Home Office.

“Police officers can’t be in two places at once so all this paperwork has to be swept aside if ministers want to see  more officers on the beat and a return to neighbourhood policing.”

Darren said he also welcomed the minister’s comments on officer hours taken up on cases which could be handled by other agencies and hoped to see measures introduced in the near future.

He said: “I am pleased the minister has now taken this on board because it has become a  real cause for concern  within policing.”

The proposed shake-up follows recommendations from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) which said a review of productivity found an estimated 443,000 officer hours were spent filling in forms and dealing with unnecessary admin - the equivalent to attending 220,000 domestic abuse incidents or 270,000 burglaries.

In his speech, Mr Philp said: “We’re going to make clear that frivolous allegations of malicious communications should not be recorded as a criminal offence unless the criminal threshold has clearly been met.

“We don’t think that being rude or insulting is a police matter.

“Officers are not the thought police and where something is reported that doesn’t meet the criminal threshold, we don’t want that to be investigated or reported as a crime. We don’t want to waste police time on that kind of thing."

The Home Office said the changes would save police time by no longer recording cases of messages that may offend someone or where a public disturbance occurred but has been resolved.

A spokesman said ministers believed officers should be on the streets investigating crimes such as burglary rather than investigating comments made online.

NPCC chair Gavin Stephenson said: “Police officers must be totally focused on keeping people safe and ensuring they feel safe.

“We want to provide the best possible policing to the public and the work of the police productivity review is aimed at removing barriers and improving effectiveness.”