How about this for a prime example of self-defeating bureaucracy? For many years, the desk at Lingfield Police Station has been staffed by a publicly spirited group of local volunteers. They have given their time freely, because they wanted to, and because they thought it worthwhile.

They made no demands, and they came at very little cost to the community. Their work ensured that the Police Station was open to visitors, and that those reporting any problems could be sure of a friendly face and a kind word. Good news all round, you might have thought.

Not according to somebody at Surrey Police Headquarters in Guildford who decided this was all too amateur and insufficiently regulated. There had to be rules, new qualifications to pass, and a new uniform to wear. It is, according to Surrey Police, “essential” that an identical service is introduced across the County; one that conforms to common standards.

What utter nonsense. I suggest that none of the visitors to Lingfield Police Station care a fig what uniform is worn in the station in Camberley. I am quite sure that they would rather, for example, see a friendly person in casual dress than nobody at all. I doubt that local residents care as much about uniforms as the Police seem to do.

I am a keen supporter of Surrey Police and the vital work that they do (on a very tight budget). But I do think that they’ve got this completely wrong.

The changes they proposed would have cost more, not less; and achieved little other than to satisfy an official sense of neatness. It turns out they have achieved nothing at all, because the volunteers have decided to leave rather than endorse the new rules. Maybe that was the purpose of the exercise all along; I don’t know. The effusive gratitude espoused in a Surrey Police statement for the valuable work of the volunteers was not accompanied by any assurance that the service in Lingfield will continue, nor by a commitment to reconsider this wrong-headed policy of centralised control.

Why can’t we simply allow volunteers to do their work? Why does everything have to be standardised and regulated? Why does it all have to be, in this case literally, uniform?

All public sector bodies, whether in Whitehall or based locally, need to know the importance of letting go. Often, indeed usually, the things that people make happen for themselves in an organic way are better by far than those which are commanded from above.