Cutting through the red tape

A third of police time is wasted on bureaucracy and forces are suffering from confused governance and complex accountability according to a new report. The report, Reducing Bureaucracy in Policing , also said there was a shortage of basic skills, a lack of experience in decision-making, inconsistent leadership, poor risk management and an institutionalised blame culture. "Too much attention is given to crossing Ts and dotting Is and not enough to getting it right first time," said Jan Berry, a former chair of the Police Federation who was hired by the Home Office in 2008 to tackle bureacracy. "I would estimate one third of effort is either over-engineered, duplicated or adds no additional value. This is unaffordable in the current climate and consideration will need to be given to how savings in time and energy can be realised in hard cash terms." In one example highlighted in the report, the work of one student officer investigating a simple burglary was reviewed and directed by nine separate supervisors. The report also found inconsistencies. While a superintendent can authorise an officer to carry a firearm on one sheet of paper, for example, it takes at least four sheets to authorise an officer to look through someone's window. Berry said complex accountability and confused governance had led to "shared but diluted responsibility, where decision-making can be passed on and no-one held ultimately responsible". She added that disproportionate inspection regimes and systems which give "greater attention to recording than investigation" and front line officers were left "frustrated at the lack of trust and amount of duplicated effort and waste they experience on a daily basis". The report suggests that unnecessary gate-keeping roles should be scrapped and guidance, along with the need to show compliance, should be radically reduced. "Unless the barriers to progress are addressed the fight against bureaucracy will not be won, the waste and duplication will continue and the budget cuts will have a greater cost than is necessary," Berry said. "Bureaucracy will continue to increase if trust is not rebuilt – trust between local police and communities, trust between front line staff and senior officers, trust between police and partners and trust between the police service and government. "Bureaucracy will continue to increase if policing and society fails to adopt a more proportionate, common sense response to risk, based on core values, ethical standards and professional judgment." Berry called for "long-term continuous improvement based on lean thinking" to deliver transformational change and for more responsible leadership. "When my earlier reports arrived on the desk of civil servants, politicians and chief officers everyone looked at each other and wondered who was responsible for implementing it," she said. "Thereby lies the problem."