'More police' after red tape cuts

Chris Sims said officers had cut down on routine paperwork

The equivalent of 19 extra police officers a day are on Staffordshire's streets after cuts to red tape, the force's chief constable has said.

Chris Sims said work to reduce bureaucracy had given people "more access to policing".

Mr Sims recently said some Home Office targets had had a damaging effect on policing in England and Wales.

Staffordshire is one of four constabularies taking part in a scheme aimed at cutting red tape.

Mr Sims added that the force would also soon have 38 additional police community support officers (PCSOs) which had been funded by the county council.

'Routine stuff'

He said: "What we have done is take away from PCSOs and police officers a lot of the routine stuff that prevented them from being on patrol - that's certainly made a difference.

"We have calculated, for example, that we have got an extra 19 officers on the streets of a day because of the work we are doing to reduce bureaucracy."

The force has been working itself to cut bureaucracy and is also taking part in the Public First Project, a government pilot scheme aimed at restoring common sense to policing.

Mr Sims, who took over as chief constable last year, has also welcomed a government green paper aimed at cutting red tape.

Last month he said that "at its worst" Home Office targets had allowed a "policing to targets culture to take hold" and he believed the focus should now be on giving people the policing they needed.