A survey of local government CCTV shows that councils are keen on ‘sustainability’. In other words, they want to protect services; but for all the work with other councils on joint tenders and monitoring, and being smarter with equipment, cuts are having to happen.
Vale of Glamorgan Council, based in Barry, is working with neighbouring Bridgend County Borough Council on proposed CCTV ‘collaborative working’. Vale of Glamorgan speaks of having an ‘agile approach to collaborative working’. What is in fact proposed is that Bridgend does Vale of Glamorgan’s CCTV monitoring (’a single location service is the most effective and efficient approach for this service’). Why pick one control room, in Bridgend, over another, at Barry Leisure Centre, because (as council officers have told Vale of Glamorgan councillors who have to make the tricky political decision) it would cost the same to integrate the two services, in either place. Bridgend’s monitoring centre is larger; and does more (’offering emergency out of hours telephone contact, lone worker, lift monitoring and bollard management for example’) whereas Barry does only CCTV. As for costs, it’s suggested integrating would mean a capital cost of £100,000, plus an estimated £10,000 a year for third party line rental cost to connect the two systems. As for benefits, combining the two staffs (and hence less ‘natural inefficiency in monitoring operations’) will save £75,000 a year. And business continuity is kept in mind; if Bridgend should fail, there will be a workstation at Barry. It’s proposed to keep the current number of hours cameras are monitored and to maintain the service, while saving Vale of Glamorgan Council £48,000 a year, after the capital spend, when comparing what the council will pay Bridgend, with what it spends now on its own monitoring. Pay-back for the initial spending will come between three and five years. South Wales Police have welcomed the merging while calling for keeping local operator knowledge.
Outlook: the control room that does most already looks best placed to keep, and get more, work.
Hartlepool Borough Council, similarly, is looking to go in with Stockton and Middlesbrough boroughs on joint tendering of CCTV maintenance. The August issue of Professional Security reported that the surveillance camera code of practice has come into force, covering (so far) only public space CCTV. In truth some councils have been working with the code in mind – and other standards – already. For instance Hartlepool has already been doing a ‘location justification review’ of its CCTV. The council now has a ‘refreshed’ CCTV strategy, as setting out that crime prevention, public safety and national security will be the only criteria to judge a public space camera on, and not whether the council can afford it, reach to fit it, or has public support behind commissioning or indeed de-commissioning a camera. In plainer words than a council report, gone are the days of councils putting up cameras solely to please councillors or other interest groups. Since last year, Hartlepool (like other councils) has sought to save by going wireless, ‘rather than using very expensive secure broadband connections’, to quote a March report to councillors. A pilot project has transmitted three cameras at a sports centre wirelessly to the monitoring centre over the council’s IT, and Hartlepool is looking to go wireless. In other ways looking to save, Hartlepool hopes to do more careful ‘planned maintenance’, inspecting and cleaning cameras, to save on ‘costly unplanned (reactive) maintenance and repairs’. Hartlepool has some 55 town centre cameras, compared with 174 at council buildings and 294 in schools, and four mobiles (and seven mobile covert cameras): 620 in total.
Outlook: As featured in a Professional Security case study at Luton last year, going wireless can deliver sustainability.
In his annual report, Bournemouth Council CCTV manager Tony Gleason gave details of what kept his control room ticking: ‘incident call source’ (largely from police, besides town, shop and pub watch radio schemes), whether incidents were classed as proactive or reactive (very roughly, twice as many are reactive as proactive) and totals of arrests and people charged as a result of CCTV evidence (both rising quite sharply in the last couple of years), viewings by police in the control room and discs ‘seized’. Tony Gleason hands out praise, to his staff (employed under contract by Broadland Guarding Services) and to the council’s street lighting team and contractor Chroma Vision for deployment of wireless cameras, notably to combat on-street prostitution in the seaside suburb of Boscombe, and to monitor the summer 2012 Olympic torch relay. Most viewings of CCTV evidence are by a Dorset Police VIDO (visual images, detection and identification) officer, with a link to the council CCTV (which is based at Bournemouth police station) to review footage and download to disc. Besides, the council’s website details the locations and arcs of observations of some 197 cameras, mainly pan and tilts on poles, and fixed cameras in a multi-storey car park; the council code of practice (which for example states that cameras will not be covertly used, nor dummies); and deployment guidelines for those re-deployable cameras. The website also gives news; most recently the council fitted new cameras and lighting at an underpass, as requested by Bournemouth University students union, after a night-time sexual assault; CCTV did provide an image for police of a suspect, but the quality was described as poor.
Outlook: Some council CCTV set-ups are doing better than others at putting their best foot forward, for good governance and public-relations reasons. Rather than single out Tony Gleason, there are others: such as Barry Donbavand at Sedgemoor District Council, whose control room covers as far afield as Taunton and Yeovil; and Jason Flannagan, control room manager of Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council’s CCTV and concierge service.
Local government then is seeking to maintain CCTV and other services. However, as City of Lincoln Council put it in a June report, proposing medium term savings on CCTV (for the next five years), the year on year need for savings has left the council having to look at front-line services. As for its 140 CCTV cameras and control room, that means a proposed end to double staffing at all times. A move to single staffing, ‘supplemented by double staffing at times of peak demand, will mean a cut of three full-time operators, from eight to five. Lincoln will still have a team leader and two part-time operators; and besides two casuals on ‘zero hours’ contracts to cover staff holidays or sickness. As a report puts it, that ‘would maintain the principle of 24-7 staffing’ and save £321,000 over five years. For a couple of years, Lincoln has kept control room vacancies open, meaning ‘erratic’ staff patterns, the council admits. As a comparison City of Lincoln needs to find £1m in savings in the financial year 2013-14 (and an estimated £3m in 2016-17). This begs the question: when is peak demand? And Lincoln point to general highest demand between 9am and 3pm – that is, to cover pubs and clubs, ‘with the key days being Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday’. Regular shop hours – 10am to 5pm – is a significantly lower second highest peak of demand. More anecdotally, while monitoring in daylight hours is easier and predictable (shoplifting, lost people), night-time monitoring can be violent and more unpredictable. Lincoln admits fewer staff will mean less is possible – such as time-consuming ‘tape reviews’ for police. Despite such prioritising, the public will not notice a difference, it is claimed. What if the single operator has to take a break? Would they be blamed if something happens while they are away from the screen? The council assures them they will not be held responsible. As for what’s more of a priority than something else – as one council has put it, public safety counts above all; a lost child, for instance, over a shop thief.
Outlook: As staff is the largest single cost, CCTV managers have little choice but to look there if they have to trim budgets.
Single manning instead of double manning was also aired earlier this year at Scarborough Borough Council. Its 57 cameras mainly cover the seaside town centre, besides Whitby and Filey. Town hall operators do 12-hour shifts, and while one takes the out of hours and Coastcall (warden alarm calls from the elderly), one monitors CCTV. The control centre costs £0.55m a year. Take away income from the county council and Yorkshire Coast Homes (YCH), the housing association, and the service costs the borough £333,000 a year, mostly on paying staff. While single manning may become an option, the council is looking to save by cutting overtime. As a sign of how the general public sector cuts are squeezing all, YCH is looking for value for money and may take its monitoring in-house, or go to tender; the borough would then have to decide whether to tender. Given that police once monitored the CCTV, might police fund the council now? As police, too, have to save millions, that’s not possible. Scarborough appeared to rule out creating a private company to go after private sector work. Might Scarborough outsource, as some councils, notably Bexley have? Or, as consultants studied in 2010-11, might North Yorkshire councils do ‘joint working’? While other councils have clubbed together – east Nottinghamshire for instance based on Newark council control room, featured in the March issue of Professional Security – the idea has found little favour in North Yorkshire. For one thing, Craven and Selby councils have CCTV no longer and ‘the service in Ryedale has all but been wound down’. That leaves Harrogate, 60 miles from Scarborough.
Outlook: While some councils have gone down the route of pooling monitoring, to save the expense of upkeep (or refurbishment) of a control room, regional geography might make it a non-starter in parts.
Cambridge City Council and Huntingdonshire District Council are proposing a shared CCTV service. As the two local authorities say, they are working in an increasingly difficult financial environment, under pressure to reduce budgets whilst continuing to provide quality services. Both councils by the proposal to share CCTV services are expected to reduce combined running costs by about £200,000 a year.
Huntingdonshire District Council and Cambridge City Council have provided a CCTV service for 16 years. There are significant infrastructure costs attached to the delivery of this service, and it is in this area that both councils will see the benefit of this partnership.
A detailed and thorough review has been conducted into the viability of a shared service, which once considered by council members, will be subject to consultation with trade unions and staff groups at each authority. The new service would be hosted by Huntingdonshire and operate from its purpose-built CCTV control room at Eastfield House in Huntingdon. Staffing from both councils would be integrated into a common structure. Some overall staff reductions from both authorities may result which would contribute to anticipated future savings. Arrangements would be set up to make sure that the shared service was governed to the satisfaction of both authorities. Joining together into one large team will offer both authorities greater resilience to provide CCTV the councils say. The new service will benefit from using the shared knowledge and experience of staff from both authorities and will lower operating costs. There is also the opportunity to share a more efficient technical platform from the Huntingdon base.
The shared service would use the IT infrastructure set up for Cambridgeshire’s Public Services Network to link together the CCTV systems operating separately in Cambridge and Huntingdon.
Cllr Tim Bick, Cambridge City Council’s Leader, said: “I welcome the work that officers have done at both Huntingdonshire District Council and Cambridge City Council. The proposals set out reductions in operating costs whilst safeguarding the quality and effectiveness of our CCTV services. I am looking forward to considering these proposals at the committee meeting on 8 July, so that a decision on the future of the service can be made.”
And Deputy Executive Leader of Huntingdonshire District Council, Nick Guyatt, said: “Residents have a right to feel safe in their community, and by offering a comprehensive CCTV service we can help in the fight against crime in our area. I am pleased to consider any proposals which allow us to maintain this excellent service, whilst at the same time reducing operating costs.”
Sandwell in the West Midlands reported in its 2012-13 report how it issued 633 tenancy condition advice notices via the intercoms for various tenancy breaches; and handled more than 101,000 intercom calls, mainly for door entry; requiring 24-7 operating. Its 464 cameras largely cover internal communal parts of blocks of flats. Work with police ranges from cases of cannabis factories to child cruelty to metal theft (police first got a complaint of metal being broken up, and reviewed CCTV). Sandwell has monitored help points and public address (PA) at West Bromwich bus station, for Centro; and West Bromwich and Wednesbury town centres. Sandwell has some 24 operators in six teams of four, who also use ‘talking CCTV’ (whereby operators for example warn and move on street drinkers through PA fitted by cameras).
Outlook: City CCTV set-ups have the extra work of managing tower blocks, and with the extra manpower can do wide-ranging work with police and others.
What of London? Barnet is outsourcing, on a seven-year contract. What the borough calls a ‘traded service model’ would cut about £80,000 a year from its current £836,560 a year CCTV budget. The borough assumes an outsource contractor would be better able to sell itself (‘exploit the commercial opportunities’). If the council kept the technical side of CCTV in-house, technical expertise it does not have, it would have to rely on consultants; and Barnet’s CCTV does need updating (being ‘expensive relative to more modern systems, and will very quickly no longer be fit for purpose’). The CCTV staff will go to a contractor under TUPE. Rather than the current 24-hour monitoring, Barnet proposes a service specification of a ‘core 16 hours of operation’ (put another way, 66 per cent of the 24-hours) which the council says would pick up more than 80 per cent of incidents, and save £0.2m a year. Even when there’s not human monitoring, remote monitoring would allow police to access live footage, and 62 per cent of incidents are ‘police-driven’.
Outlook: Bexley in south-west London went for a private partner (Siemens) in 2010. Other councils are following.
Earlier fears during the public sector austerity that entire CCTV systems would see the lights switched off have not materialised. Work goes on. Last year for example St Albans City and District Council gave a tender for monitoring to Videcom Security. The council monitors 89 cameras with another 98 recorded to hard drive. The council spoke of upgrading – ‘if funds are available’ – its control room, replacing ‘outdated monitors with flat screens’. CCTV results range from a shooting in front of a re-deployable camera (leading to a conviction) to an alert to police of children playing on rooftops in St Albans city centre (police attended).
In August East Staffordshire Borough Council’s Cabinet agreed on using cameras in areas of little or no activity to replace or repair cameras in priority locations. The Burton-on-Trent-based council is to seek contributions from partners that use the CCTV, which is wholly funded by the council, and recover costs associated with monitoring high street traffic bollards. The council proposes to raise fees for monitoring privately owned cameras; and to transfer three mobile cameras to the police at no cost to them, and open discussions with the county police and crime commissioner to transfer the remaining ‘CCTV apparatus’ to the police.
