Bureaucracy

Reducing Bureauracy and Targets

Although the CCC accepts that a certain level of operational administration is a necessary component of effective crime fighting, it believes that the administrative tasks Police Officers are compelled to complete significantly reduce the discretion of Police Officers, often tying the hands of officers trying to do their job.

It is important to monitor the incidences of crime and to attempt to recognise patterns and properly distribute personnel and resources, as well as to ensure that the Police commitment to fairness and integrity is upheld. However, the advent of stringent performance targets, leading to a near obsession with the compiling of forms listing the details of every action or executive decision taken by an officer, has significantly changed the conduct of Police work, leaving Police Officers with vastly reduced time to spend outside the Police Station, doing the job they were trained to do.

The CCC believes that in most cases the centralised targets that have driven recent Police reforms have resulted in unexpected and unwelcome outcomes.

What we want:

• New regulations to be trailed and evaluated in consultation with the Policing service staff representative bodies
• A review of the current reporting requirements, with a view to dramatically reducing the paper trail
• The greater use of technology to assist with crime reporting
• Greater discretion for Police Officer to deal with petty crime
• A reduction in the number of central targets
• A differentiation of the seriousness of crimes in all performance measures

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