Calls for the introduction of national standards for preparatory IT training for police sergeants emerged today, in a report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC).

One of the main complaints from the report was that performance was often affected by paperwork related to targets and work performance.

The report found that sergeants are spending around 45 per cent of their time performing tasks such as recording performance figures instead of doing field work.

The figures are surprising, but the need to process paperwork is inevitable, said HM Inspector Jane Stichbury.

“We all know the amount of time taken up by e-mails. There has to be some bureaucracy. The challenge is to say ‘What are people actually doing sitting plugged into a computer when they need to be outside?’,” said Stichbury.