On the beat pledge 'wrong'

Spending £6m of public money to publicise a pledge that neighbourhood police will spend at least 80 per cent of their time on the beat was "wrong", said a Government minister.

Policing and Justice Minister Nick Herbert said New Labour's Policing Pledge was an example of Whitehall bureaucracy that "just became a whole lot of targets in disguise".

The 10-point pledge, an attempt by the former government to lay down a minimum standard for policing, was axed by the coalition in June as it told senior officers to focus on cutting crime alone.

Mr Herbert said: "We want to replace bureaucratic accountability like this with democratic accountability."

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