I have added a copy of Jan Berry’s ‘Reducing Bureaucracy’ report to the site under the Home Office section.

Jan’s report is fairly short, but the cross cutting nature of the issues that she is trying to address and the complexity of the policing landscape she is traversing are apparent.
She’s placed a number of signposts and markers in the report and it will be interesting to see how (and if) they come to fruition when her final report is published.

Her interim summary of recommendations are:

Organise a seminar with senior representatives from the Home Office, HMIC, ACPO, APA , the NPIA and staff associations to identify and agree protocols for implementation arrangements of national standards/initiatives across all forces

The National Policing Board or Policing Portfolio Group should consider promoting the principles of ‘Lean thinking’ to all forces, and provide a flexible framework to assist forces to adopt the principles in all their working practices.

Local Criminal Justice Boards should satisfy themselves that there is no conflict in practice between local police and CPS performance measures.

The requirement to collect data for activity-based costing should be discontinued.

Forces that do not have the Airwave GPRS locator switched on as a matter of course should review their policy. While there may be a small cost financially and in terms of network load, the locator has the potential to assist with officer safety, audit and accountability.

Consideration should be given to piloting, in a force that is currently introducing proportionate and ethical crime recording, an amended system extending police charging powers to include all summary offences, regardless of plea, and further offences subject to trial at either magistrates’ court or Crown Court.

Her Reducing Bureaucracy Practitioners Group has also identified ten processes which it considers particularly bureaucratic and which they believe would benefit from greater standardisation in systems, procedures and/or forms:
1. Accident reporting
2. Call handling
3. Case building and file management
4. Crime and incident recording
5. Custody processes
6. Domestic violence
7. Missing persons
8. National Intelligence Model (NIM)
9. Performance and development reviews for front-line officers and staff
10. Taser

The group also identified eight cross-cutting issues which need to be taken into account:
1. Interaction with the rest of the CJS
2. Partnerships
3. People (HR)
4. Performance culture and data collection
5. Assessment of risk
6. Training
7. Use of technology
8. Use of force

Related posts:

1. Jan Berry – Reducing Bureaucracy
2. Violent crime, disorder and criminal damage since the introduction of the Licensing Act 2003
3. Its the way ya tell ‘em
4. Unhappiness in ‘Green Land’
5. 10 top approaches the public want in policing