LANCASHIRE police will save almost £1.5million this year after cutting bureaucracy in a bid to allow officers to spend more time on the streets.

Bosses at the constabulary have pinpointed areas where red tape can be cut in accordance with the recommendations of a government task force led by Sir David O'Dowd.

In his report, he concluded that the public wants more officers in communities and for them to bring to justice the persistent offenders.

Sir David made 52 recommendations to achieve this and concluded that the proposals, within three to five years, would enable patrol officers to spend much more of their time on the beat.

Senior officers have been busy applying his ideas to Lancashire and came up with the following savings for the year to next March:

£250,000 from the installation of the video identification parades at Greenbank station, in Whitebirk, costed at a saving of £410 each time in officers' pay for the average of 650 parades a year

£330,000 using national intelligence systems, which means officers spend less time researching

£80,000 by reducing the number of best value reviews from six to four each year

£700,000 by cutting the number of false alarms they attend when burglar alarms are activated.

Various other minor savings are suggested at a cost of £100,000.

The bill for policing in Lancashire this year is £216.8 million and there are 3,000 plus officers.

The savings will be discussed at a Police Authority meeting at County Hall, Preston, on June 3 at 10am.