Police must spend 13 HOURS filling in ten forms before they can catch a thief

Police must spend more than 13 hours filling in forms if they want to track a serial burglar planning a raid, it was revealed yesterday.

Officers also face a maze of red tape to do something as simple as walking past the home of a suspected drug dealer to check for expensive cars.

The shocking extent of the bureaucracy involved in mounting a police surveillance operation has been uncovered by the Conservatives.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis last night promised to rip up the complicated forms which keep police off the beat if the Tories win the next election.

He said that everyday operations should not need authorisation from the Office of the Surveillance Commissioners, which is supposed to protect the innocent from snooping by public bodies.

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This is the same organisation which regularly grants councils permission to check the phone records of those suspected of fly-tipping.

Mr Davis spoke to forces across the country to see how they were struggling with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act – known as RIPA – which was introduced by Labour in 2000.

It requires police to seek authorisation for surveillance operations. He was told by the Met about the difficulty involved in tracking a burglar with three previous convictions.

The man was known to break into houses after collecting his benefits from the local Jobcentre Plus.

On one occasion, the police knew that he was going to commit a crime and decided to follow him.

In order to comply with RIPA, the officer involved had to fill in ten forms which took 13 and a half hours to complete.

The documents required included a Proactive Assessment and Tasking Form, which alone took ten hours of painstaking research.

It asked for details of the number of burglaries in the area, the trend of burglaries over the last three years and a list of all recent burglaries to which the suspect could be connected.

Police in Leicestershire told a similar story, saying they had to complete a 17-page authorisation form to turn around a public CCTV camera so that it covered a row of shops where yobs were smashing windows.

Authorisation was also needed for an officer to hide behind a wall in a supermarket car park to catch car thieves.

The number of RIPA forms created during 2006- 2007 was 24,374, which works out at more than 550 per force.

Between April 2006 and March last year, 19,650 requests for direct surveillance – which covers most routine operations – were granted.

Many of these authorisations would not be required under the Tory plans.

Police would still be expected to secure approval for more intrusive operations, such as placing cameras inside buildings. The use of informants would also need authorisation.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has described RIPA as a "huge unnecessary bureaucracy".

Mr Davis said the Tories would introduce "common sense" to the rules and would stop police being deterred from investigating minor crimes by mountains of paperwork.

He added: "The idea that some of this requires a 40-page form is just ludicrous."

He said that his party's plans were "a straightforward way of taking a burden off the backs of the people doing the job".

The Tories' pledge came as it was revealed that police numbers fell by 647 during the six months to September 2007.

However, the number of controversial Community Support Officers continued to increase.

Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker yesterday defended the number of police on the beat.

"Decisions on levels of police officers, staff and CSOs are an operational matter," he said.

"It is for chief constables and police authorities to decide how best to use the resources available to them when setting staffing levels."