Police Keith Vaz To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what estimate he has made of the proportion of time spent by police officers in each police force (a) on front-line duties and (b) in completing (i) all administrative, (ii) incident-related administrative and (iii) stop and search forms in the latest period for which figures are available; (2) what estimate he has made of the proportion of the working day spent by police officers, (a) on front-line duties and (b) in completing (i) all administrative forms and (ii) stop and search forms in the latest period for which figures are available. Mr. Hanson Figures for all forces for front-line policing and for paperwork at a national level are given in the following tables. Figures for paperwork for individual forces should be sought from those forces, as it is not possible for the Home Office to release them without incurring disproportionate cost. The Home Office does not collect data on time spent on stop and search routinely, but we estimate that hand written completion of stop and search forms on the street takes on average three to seven minutes. The time spent on completing the form depends on the circumstances of the individual stop. Figures are not available on a force by force basis. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |Percentage| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Time spent on incident-related paperwork |12.4 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Time spent on non incident-related paperwork |9.3 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Total time spent on paperwork |21.7 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Time spent on patrol3 |13.8 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Frontline policing measure4 |64.9 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |1 The information is taken from activity analysis, which is collected by all forces over a two-week period in each year and provides a snapshot of how officers are deployed.2 Excluding Staffordshire.3 Includes officers on foot/car/beat patrol, CID and traffic officers.4 The frontline policing measure includes activities other than those shown in the table such as dealing with crimes and non-crime incidents.| | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- |Force |Frontline policing measure (percentage)| ------------------------------------------------------------- |Avon and Somerset |58.9 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Bedfordshire |67.6 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Cambridgeshire |64.3 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Cheshire |63.9 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |City of London |67.8 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Cleveland |60.8 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Cumbria |62.3 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Derbyshire |71.2 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Devon and Cornwall |61.3 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Dorset |71.4 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Durham |57.3 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Dyfed-Powys |61.9 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Essex |64.3 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Gloucestershire |69.2 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Greater Manchester |58.8 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Gwent |70.9 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Hampshire |66.1 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Hertfordshire |66.8 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Humberside |64.9 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Kent |68.1 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Lancashire |63.0 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Leicestershire |64.5 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Lincolnshire |63.4 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Merseyside |63.0 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Metropolitan Police|65.1 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Norfolk |68.2 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |North Wales |63.8 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |North Yorkshire |63.2 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Northamptonshire |64.7 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Northumbria |71.2 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Nottinghamshire |72.1 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |South Wales |62.5 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |South Yorkshire |70.0 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Staffordshire |n/a | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Suffolk |67.4 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Surrey |64.6 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Sussex |60.0 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Thames Valley |62.5 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Warwickshire |65.5 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |West Mercia |64.4 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |West Midlands |65.6 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |West Yorkshire |68.5 | ------------------------------------------------------------- |Wiltshire |67.2 | ------------------------------------------------------------- Keith Vaz To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what methodology his Department uses to collate figures on the amount of time spent by police officers on administrative tasks; and who in his Department has responsibility for the collection of such figures. Mr. Hanson The frontline policing measure and other measures of time spent on patrol and paperwork have been discontinued as part of the Government's commitment to reduce the burden on police forces imposed by statistical and other data. This will allow police officers to concentrate their efforts on fighting crime and being more visible. The decision to discontinue the measure is based on the maturing relationship which exists between the police service and the Home Office around performance management. Over time a performance management culture has been embedded, and following the success that forces have had in reducing crime and the move to one centrally set target around public confidence, we believe that this approach is the right one.