A group of MPs have criticised the police for spending
too much time on paperwork and not investing enough in technology
to help them.
The
Home Affairs Committee published a
report this week on how the police use their funding - and
concluded it is not being spent effectively.
The report stated, "We consider that the proportion of police
officer time spent on paperwork in each of the last three years, at
about 20%, remains unacceptably high. There has been insufficient
progress in introducing personal digital assistants, and we
recommend that chief constables should ensure this technology is
introduced in all forces as a matter of urgency."
The criticism comes after a 40% rise in total police revenue
expenditure in real terms between 1996 to 1997 and 2006 to 2007,
from £8,578m to £12,015. The report said, "On the basis of the data
currently available, it is difficult to assess how effectively the
increased spending on the police in recent years has been
deployed."
But the report also quotes the
Association of Police
Authorities which said, "We have quite a good record of
introducing a whole range of technology - like Airwave, a £1bn
system, and at the same time we are implementing automatic number
plate recognition, fingerprints, ID systems, a whole series of
improvements in command and control and trying to join up with the
rest of the criminal justice system."