The picture of violent crime in Britain is being distorted by nervous police officers recording minor incidents such as playground squabbles as serious incidents, a report on the state of policing says.

Police officers who complained about mountains of unnecessary paperwork were responsible for generating much of it themselves as a result of a “just in case” culture in the service.

Sir Ronnie Flanagan, HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said yesterday that there was an urgent need for national leadership on cutting bureaucracy and for police officers on the frontline to begin to exercise judgment and discretion.

Gordon Brown responded by promising the widespread introduction of handheld computers which would transmit information directly back to police stations and reduce time spent on form-filling. The Prime Minister said: “We believe we can cut the amount of paperwork on any one shift for a police officer by about 1½ hours, making better use of police time.”

Sir Ronnie’s interim Review of Policing was produced after four months visiting officers of all ranks, including going out on patrol.

He said he found “staggering” differences between frontline policing today and his own experience in the past.

There was an obvious need for the introduction of standard forms for recording information, Sir Ronnie said: one force had a 28-page booklet for recording a missing person report while another used a 16-page form. Collision record documents ranged from a 44-page form at one force to an eight-page A4 pack at another.

He also recommended a new definition of violent crime as an offence that caused injury or the real threat of injury. The process of redefining violent offences should be achieved by a cross-party debate, which could put paid to political point-scoring over the issue.

The report stated: “The recording and level of investigation of a vast swathe of minor crimes incidents is, in my view, a key area that needs to be reconsidered.”

An overemphasis on meeting targets for detecting crimes led to officers spending too long on minor incidents with a view to improving force statistics. Sir Ronnie wrote: “An example would be a low-level playground common assault. The sometimes inordinate amount of time spent by officers in such tasks could and should be channelled into more appropriate activity.”

This was not a suggestion that the police should have no role in such matters of low-risk activity, but rather, “a strong feeling that it can be dealt with in much more expeditious and indeed effective ways without having for example, the rest of the criminal justice system brought into action”, he said.

Sir Ronnie identified the process of bringing cases to court as one of the worst for generating excessive paperwork and called for an expansion of “virtual courts” which provide video links between police custody suites and courtrooms.

Sir Ronnie, a former chief constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, said that he was impressed by the development of neighbourhood policing and that it should be strengthened as a valuable resource in fighting crime.

He added: “The conditions for crimes such as terrorism and serious organised crime occur in local communities, and how they are tackled has a major impact on local confidence and trust in policing.”

The interim report was welcomed by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, who said that Sir Ronnie had outlined simple steps to cut red tape and make every police officer more effective in fighting crime.“Just from his proposal on case file management, we could save 400,000 hours of police time. That is the equivalent of 200 officers.”

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