POLICE guidelines are so long they are like Tolstoy’s War and Peace says the Met’s top boss.
Met Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson made the comments after London Assembly Member for Bromley and Bexley James Cleverly queried whether 6,497 pages of police guidelines should be reduced and officers given back their powers of discretion.
At a Met Police Authority meeting Mr Cleverly took the opportunity to push his campaign to cut the red tape of police bureaucracy.
The formal name for the guidelines is the Standard Operating Procedure, which aims to combine instruction, information and guidance for police officers.
They include 14 pages on how to use hand cuffs and advice on how to get off a bicycle quickly.
In response to Mr Cleverly, Sir Paul agreed the guidelines need to be reduced, saying they were “like Tolstoy’s War and Peace” and “people couldn’t read (them) in a lifetime.”
He said: “The guidelines don’t value discretion and don’t necessarily improve professional outcomes.”
Speaking afterwards, Mr Cleverly said: “Unnecessary bureaucracy has a real cost that we can ill afford.
“We need our police on the streets fighting crime, not wading through tomes of guidelines.”
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