As Gazette online reported on Monday, the home secretary has announced plans for the power to decide charges for those suspected of crimes to be passed from the Crown Prosecution Service to the police in 80% of cases.

Such plans, we are told, will save police hours and slash bureaucracy.

Yet, as the CPS pointed out in an official statement following the announcement, the move is substantially less radical than it sounds – the police having previously retained 67% of all charging decisions.

The proposed changes would initially take the figure to 72%, while the CPS would rightly retain its decision-making role in the most serious and complex cases.

These proposals will hardly take criminal justice from the evidence-driven era of Silent Witness back to Life On Mars.

A more interesting question for the home secretary is whether it is in the interest of policing’s reputation for the police to be more closely identified with prosecutions in the eyes of the public.

Where a decision is taken not to proceed with a prosecution, victims of crime feel genuine anger.

What is more, enhanced scrutiny of process, which would necessarily accompany greater police responsibility here, will adversely affect the reputation of the police whenever they fall short of the highest standards.

Frontline police will find that to be a distracting, complicated and uncomfortable experience.