Police officers will be able to spend an extra 1.5 hours a day patrolling the streets when administrative support staff take over much of their desk jobs under new cabinet plans, justice minister Ivo Opstelten said on Friday.

The cabinet plans to cut bureaucracy to allow officers to spend more time on ‘real policing’ – combating crime and public nuisance, the minister said in a statement.
As well as greater use of clerical staff, some 100 rules governing the way the police do their jobs are to be scrapped or made more simple, the minister said.
For example, each police force’s annual report must now fit on just two pages of A4 paper. And the form for taking statements from juveniles will also be reduced from seven to three pages.