NEWLY-appointed Deputy Chief Constable Stephen Long is looking to introduce new technology to keep more bobbies on the beat.

Mr Long, 48, arrived in Wiltshire in January 2000 as acting Assistant Chief Constable, but his appointment has now been formalised and he has taken over operational command of the Wiltshire force.

He says his main priority is to get officers out on patrol, rather than stuck in the police station filling in forms.

He said: "At the moment there is far too much bureaucracy, so I am introducing new measures to take the pressure of form filling away from officers."

To enable his officers to spend maximum time out on the streets, Mr Long has come up with some innovative new schemes.

He said: "We have introduced measures that let officers report crimes through mobile data while they are still out on patrol, instead of having to come back to the station to fill in forms.

"At the moment they are filing reports over the phone, but we have the infrastructure to get them electronic access to the forms, so they can file them over e-mail which will save a lot of time."

Mr Long, who lives in Devizes, has also introduced a 'prison handling team' the first one in the country, to take over the paperwork when people are arrested.

He said: "We have put together a team of civilian police workers who can take over the processing of prisoners once officers have arrested them. They will also fill out the reports and send the file to the Crown Prosecution Service, which means cases should be processed faster and officers have more time."

Another measure to free up police officers' time is the introduction of community support officers to deal with low level and nuisance crime.

Mr Long said: "The great advantage of community support officers is they have more time to spend on single cases, and more time to talk to people, which increases the feeling of security in the community, and provides a better community policing service."

As well as spending more time providing specific, community targeted policing, Mr Long is also encouraging officers to look further afield and share intelligence with other police forces.

The force is also sharing intelligence with colleagues across the South West on distraction burglaries.