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New measures for cutting knife crime red tape

18/09/2008

The Home Office has announced new plans aimed at reducing 'red tape' for police in the fight against knife crime.

From the end of October, police officers in ten knife crime hot-spots will no longer have to fill out lengthy forms after questioning people in the street.

The government claims the new measures will free up at least 580,000 hours for police, providing officers with more time to tackle crime.

The level of form filling when recording actual crime in the ten areas will also be reduced. Staffordshire police is already running a pilot scheme and has reportedly cut 80 per cent of its crime reporting forms in 80 per cent of cases – from 15 minutes to two.

Home secretary Jacqui Smith said today: "I am determined to support our police officers so that they spend more time saving lives on our streets. Giving police the means to dramatically reduce form-filling bureaucracy in these ten priority areas will free up valuable officer time to further clamp down on knife crime.

"The recent policing green paper set out radical plans to cut red tape to allow police to focus on the most serious crime and on local issues. Today, police chiefs and I will be discussing how we can fast-track work to enable officers to spend more time dealing with crime, and policing our streets."

Chief Constable Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), added: "Knife crime has a devastating impact on our streets and neighbourhoods as well as on its victims and their families.

"Acpo is working to coordinate good practice so that we take a tough approach across the police service to those who carry knives and work with parents, local groups and other agencies to get to the roots of this insidious problem.

"Fast-tracking these form-filling measures will help ensure our local policing teams are put firmly where they belong, at the service of the communities they work within. While evaluation of the existing crime recording pilot areas is not yet complete, the signs and signals are positive. The ten areas picked out today stand to benefit and notwithstanding the evaluation, we hope full rollout will follow so the rewards can be shared in every neighbourhood."

The ten areas taking part in the tackling knives action programme are London, Essex, Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Nottinghamshire, South Wales and Thames Valley.