David Ruffley

The cost of police overtime has more than doubled to £411million a year under Labour because of the mountain of paperwork tying officers to their desks.

This would pay for 8,220 more beat bobbies for a year.

Last night ministers were blamed for failing to cut red tape and their handling of jail overcrowding, which has seen officers guarding criminals in police cells. Tory police reform spokesman David Ruffley , who obtained the figures, said: "This overtime is being used to do ever more paperwork.

Almost 61,000 prisoners were locked in police cells last year to ease jail overcrowding -a 13-fold increase on 2006.

It costs taxpayers Pounds 385 a night -Pounds 30 more than a Superior King room at The Ritz hotel and Pounds 284 more than a jail.

Shadow police reform minister David Ruffley uncovered the figures. He put the bill for celling prisoners at cop shops since last year at Pounds 17million.

He said: "Police stations are being clogged up and police time wasted. Every single police station had to look after prisoners last year."

The number of prisoners held in police cells soared 13 fold last year.

Packed jails led to police cells being used over 60,000 times in 2007, up from 4,617 for the previous year.

The government yesterday claimed the rise was inevitable.

But shadow police minister David Ruffley said: "It means stations are being clogged up and police time wasted."

A computer system intended to track offenders is to be scaled down after the costs of the project more than doubled in just six months to exceed Pounds 155m.

In what opposition MPs labelled another "government IT fiasco", the Ministry of Justice said the project, known as C-Nomis, would be introduced in prisons only and not extended to the probation service, as originally planned.

Hundreds of millions of pounds should be diverted from rural police forces to those that cover inner cities, an official report has recommended.

Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the Home Office's adviser on policing, said that some forces containing large cities need greater funding which may have to come at the expense of forces in the countryside.

He also said that civilians could carry out much of the work done by the 141,000 front line officers in England and Wales.

Police forces are paid for by grants from the Government and from council tax payers.

BRING IN CIVILIANS INSTEAD, SAYS REPORT

CASH FOR SHIRES WILL GO TO LABOUR HEARTLANDS

Fewer police should be deployed in the fight against crime, an official report said yesterday.

Sir Ronnie Flanagan claimed that having 141,000 officers is neither necessary nor financially 'sustainable'.

Many of the tasks these 'standing armies' perform - including manning the police station front desk to help distressed crime victims - could be handed to civilian staff instead, he argued.

Police are "criminalising" children who build snowmen by the side of the road or chalk on pavements in a bid to hit targets, a leaked Government report reveals.

Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, warns that officers are "encouraged to criminalise people" because of "poor professional judgement, combined with performance management arrangements."

His long-anticipated report on how to slash police red tape and improve performance, due out tomorrow, was leaked to the Daily Express and reveals a "risk averse" police force in a chaotic state.

Bobbies get hand PCs

Bobbies will be going on the beat with handheld computers and body cameras under reforms to cut paperwork to be unveiled tomorrow.

Cops will also hand out a business card if they stop someone in the street as part of new Government plans.

The cards replace the 40-question stop and account form, saving two million police hours a year. But the foot-long stop and search form will not be ditched. Instead, cops will fill in a "streamlined" version on a handheld PC.

The police should issue a business card to people stopped and asked to account for their movements under proposals to be published tomorrow.

A draft copy of the review of policing ordered last year makes a series of recommendations to reduce the red tape in policing, address the risk-averse culture that has developed and improve information technology throughout the police service.

Sir Ronnie Flanagan, Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, writes: "The 21st-century police service is in danger of becoming a slave to doctrine and straitjacketed by process."

Up to six million police hours a year are being wasted on bureaucracy, says a damning review.

Officers are 'straitjacketed' by red tape and reduced to arresting the most minor of offenders to meet crime targets.

The withering verdict is passed by Sir Ronnie Flanagan in his bombshell review of the state of the police service.