Boost for Eastleigh Police Pledge by Lib Dems

11.48.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 18th Apr 2005

Liberal Democrat plans will mean another 50 extra police and community support officers on patrol in the Eastleigh constituency, according to Eastleigh parliamentary candidate Chris Huhne.

Mr Huhne said that the Lib Dems plans to pay for an extra 10,000 police and 20,000 community support workers by scrapping the compulsory ID card scheme would ensure that Eastleigh police could devote more time to fighting crime and tackling vandalism and anti-social behaviour.

"Although we are lucky to live in an area where crime is half that of Southampton or Portsmouth, we need to remain alert and catch vandalism and anti-social behaviour when it starts. These plans would give a real fillip to local efforts to curb vandalism" said Mr Huhne.

Mr Huhne pointed out that there is increasing evidence of success in curbing youth offending and re-offending through the youth offending teams and the use of early reprimands and parental involvement.

"When I recently went on night patrol with the Eastleigh police, I saw how much time is spent typing up notes and doing paperwork. I am therefore delighted that we are committed to equip officers with hand-held computers and the latest speech recognition technology to cut paperwork and increase the amount of time spent on actual policing" said Mr Huhne. A picture of Mr Huhne on night patrol in Eastleigh is attached.

"We need our police officers out in the community, not stuck in the station. In an 8 hour shift, the average police officer only spends an hour and a half on patrol. We need to shift that balance. To help achieve this, we will give the police the technology they need and simplify the bureaucracy they face when reporting" said Mr Huhne.

Mr Huhne said that the Police Federation had told the Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons in written evidence to their recent report on Police Reform that the police did not get enough information technology backup.

The Police Federation report said: "Chronic under-investment in technology must be addressed and we support the introduction of joined-up IT systems and hand-held equipment to enable officers to conduct their work expeditiously."

Mr Huhne pointed out that SpeechMagic system is produced by Philips in conjunction with The Network Factory (TNF). It allows the user to complete forms and reports using voice commands with accuracy rates of over 95%.

The time it takes to complete paperwork in the medical sector has been cut by around 50% where the system is used. The technology is already in use 7,000 medical and legal sites worldwide, including 22 medical and 13 legal sites in the UK.