In last Friday’s early evening rush hour, three police vehicles had parked by the side of the North Circular Road in west London to deal with an incident involving a car and a van. A woman was sitting on a foldaway camping chair, looking shocked. Beside her was a young, uniformed officer, diligently writing an account of what had happened in her notebook.

As I drove past, I thought how, over the next few hours, those notes would have to be typed up onto a computer, along with any other crucial details she had jotted down by hand, while all the key information would also need to be transferred into multiple different databases. How much of the officer’s time would that take up back at the police station when she could be on the beat or responding to other emergencies?

The police service c

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