Form-filling by police officers who stop and search people on the streets is to be drastically reduced under plans to be announced next week to reduce the red tape in policing.

The proposals will include reducing the “foot-long” form that officers must fill in when they stop and search an individual on suspicion of possessing stolen goods, drugs or weapons. Another form that officers must spend seven minutes completing when asking someone to account for their behaviour or presence in an area may by scrapped altogether.

In a further move to reduce the time spent on form filling, officers will be given palm-held devices to punch in details of stop and searches and more detailed forms will be completed by nonuniformed staff in police stations. Officers may also be given digital recorders.

The proposals come after a review of the bureaucracy in the police by Sir Ronnie Flanagan, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, which is due to be published next week. Under existing powers a chief superintendent has the power to authorise stop and searches in a designated area if there is a reasonable belief that violence may take place. The power lasts for 24 hours and has been used in Birming-ham, Manchester, London and Liver-pool in recent months to tackle gun and knife crime.

Although the Conservatives and the Government were engaged in a political race yesterday to be the first to back a shake-up of the law, what neither party is suggesting is a return to the old “sus” law, under which the police could stop and search on the basis of mere suspicion. Police officers will still have to have a “reasonable suspicion” to carry out a stop and search for drugs, weapons and stolen goods.

Massound Shadjareh, the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, gave warning that relaxing restrictions on police stop-and-search powers risked a return to the bad old days. “When you look at the effectiveness of stop and search as a tool, it has had a very small impact,” he said. “There is no evidence that shows that stop and search has been successful in fighting knife crime.”

He added: “Stop and search is already alienating communities and has done in the past. That is why we had the Macpherson report. Why do we have to go back to the old days?”

Jan Berry, the chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “Any moves to cut bureaucracy, restore the discretion police officers can exercise and inject some common sense back into policing is to be welcomed.

“Police officers should be accountable for actions they take, and these forms are as much about protecting officers as they are about protecting the public. But officers should be allowed discretion as to when to record stop and encounters.”

She added: “Recording stop and search is different though, as it involves contact with people and is a statutory requirement, but common sense and discretion should prevail as to how much detail is required to be recorded.”

Under suspicion

1824 Vagrancy Act makes it illegal for a suspected person or reputed thief to frequent or loiter in a public place with intent to commit an arrestable offence

April 1981 Simmering resentment over the “sus” law, under which police used power of 1824 Act to stop and search on basis of suspicion, erupts into rioting in Brixton, South London

November 1981 Report by Lord Scarman into the riots leads to scrapping of sus law

1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act introduced new rules for stopping and searching, requiring “reasonable suspicion” that an offence had been committed

1999 Macpherson report into 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence recommended that all police stops needed to be recorded

April 2005 Recommendation comes into force

2006 Home Office figures show that black people were seven times more likely than whites to be stopped and searched

2007 Interim review by Sir Ronnie Flanagan, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, of policing suggests that bureaucracy of recording stops and searches can be reduced

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