Report Confirms ‘iPads’ WOULD Free Police to Front Line

Friday, October 12th, 2012

The Conservative Party’s candidate who hopes to become Staffordshire’s first ever Police & Crime Commissioner says he’s pleased that recent technology trials in two UK Police Force areas have backed his claim that thousands of extra police hours could be freed up for front line policing across Staffordshire.

Matthew Ellis, the Conservative candidate for the 15th November PCC election, had his proposals rubbished as a ‘gimmick’ by Labour’s PCC candidate Joy Garner within hours of him announcing them eight weeks ago.

But now official Reports on technology trials by Hampshire and Avon & Somerset police forces have backed the Tory candidate’s claim that using iPads would release thousands more police officer hours to frontline policing in Staffordshire.

Mr Ellis says his priority is to use every means possible to get police officers back into the community and visible to local people, with fewer being burdened by clumsy processes and top-heavy bureaucracy.

He explained, “I wasn’t aware of the trials when I set out my ideas for policing here but experience has shown me that being more ambitious with the use of technology should free up police to do what they were trained to do.  Fighting crime, being visible to the public and making Tamworth and rural communities across the area even safer.

“The Reports show that my plans to get 3,000 extra frontline police hours in communities every week are possible.  In fact I’d want to be even more ambitious than that across the wider criminal justice system so that even more time is released to actual policing instead of being stuck behind desks.”

The two pilots looked at different elements of the policing process.  In Hampshire, 500 statements were processed using iPad type devices including witnesses signing the screen rather than a paper version.  Actually taking the 500 witness statements saved 125 hours with a further reduction of 83 hours admin time and 33 hours more saved in ‘handovers’.

Avon & Somerset’s model involved 326 statements with 81 hours saved in taking the statements, 53 hours less time in handing over and a further 404 hours saved in using electronic format for the Court.

Police in Staffordshire process in excess of 120,000 statements each year as well as many thousands of incident reports.  The 120,000 statements alone equates to over 3,000 hours freed up each week based on the proven figures.

Mr Ellis continued, “Even though both Government and Labour say policing budgets will shrink for some time to come, my proposals for Staffordshire would mean real opportunities for visible front line policing hours to be maintained and, in time, increased further.

People across the Tamworth area will have a clear choice in November’s PCC election.  It will be about who can most effectively spend £200million of public money and has the ideas, foresight and determination to free up police officers to do more policing.  Simply campaigning to stop the cuts is not practical and anyway I’ve always believed that it’s not only how much money is spent on public services, but how effectively it’s used.”