In the summer months at Professional Security magazine, we are featuring – as the country comes out of lockdown – local government CCTV, and systems of various sizes. For example we featured a Kent council in the July print edition of Professional Security magazine, that back-tracked on a proposed cutting of monitoring of its public space CCTV. Here Peter Webster, of the CCTV User Group, airs concerns about the levels of funding available for local authority CCTV systems which could ultimately curtail the level of service they are able to deliver for the public.
Working with our members, we are exploring a number of routes to secure the future of this invaluable public safety tool. These include suggestions on how to generate additional income within existing resources through the delivery of third-party services, a council tax precept to support CCTV and whether we should lobby the government to make CCTV a statutory service for local authorities.
To help us understand this issue better, we conducted a survey of our members which uncovered a number of key facts that help to inform the debate:
– Almost everyone is already delivering some additional third-party services as part of their CCTV operations but a few are delivering far more than others.
– Average revenue (operating) budget was £426,000/year, but 32 per cent of respondents are currently experiencing budget cuts with 75pc of those being permanent, year-on-year reductions.
– Half of respondents said proposed budget cuts would substantially impact their operations through reductions in manpower which would significantly curtail operations.
– Police rely on CCTV evidence from local authority systems. The average system delivered 429 downloads of video evidence to the police in the last 12 month period, with a few systems reporting they downloaded more than 1500 video evidential packages for police in a year.
– 91pc agreed that CCTV should be a statutory service for local authorities.
– And 83pc agreed that there should be a council tax precept to fund CCTV.
In addition, there was a strong feeling in the comments section of the survey that police were a major beneficiary of CCTV which should justify local authority systems receiving a larger share of the overall public ‘law enforcement’ budget, whether that was via police and crime commissioners (PCCs) or through direct grants from central government.
However, although some PCCs have delivered funding to CCTV systems in a few areas, this has not proven to be a dependable or sufficient source of funding for either on-going operations or capital projects in many areas.
However, in the meantime, what can the managers of local authority systems do to protect their service from the budgetary axe? We recently held an online webinar with our members to discuss this very question which generated a number of excellent ideas. You can read more about it on our website but here are a few of the suggestions to come out of the discussion.
First and foremost is the need to diversify the service offering of the CCTV system. The CCTV control room in a local authority is a unique resource which can be extended to provide additional services such as third-party CCTV monitoring and monitoring of a wide range of types of alarms including intruder, panic, lone-worker and customer help points. In addition, CCTV systems can be centres of excellence for the delivery and management of other services such as body-worn video for parking wardens and environmental crime monitoring. This has been successfully done in a number of locations.
Connected to this, CCTV managers should consider repositioning their systems as security operations centres (SOCs) to reflect this wider service offering. This change of name will not only change the perception of the service within the local authority but may also be reflected in a change in mindset within the control room.
And CCTV managers should keep their finger on the pulse of their local authority, to see how they could offer help to support other services. Even if there is not a direct chargeback involved, having the heads of other services not only aware of the CCTV service but also engaged with it may prove invaluable when it comes to budget negotiations.
The CCTV User Group exists to help the managers of CCTV systems with all aspects of growing and managing public space surveillance systems including technical, operational and ethical issues. We will continue to lobby government around the funding issue while working with our members to identify ways in which they can continue to deliver best quality services to the community.
For more information, please visit our blog at www.cctvusergroup.com/blog.
About the author
Peter Webster is director of the CCTV User Group and has 17 years’ experience in local government as a CCTV and Careline Centre Manager. Its 2021 conference is due to run from September 20 to 22. Visit www.cctvusergroup.com.
Picture by Mark Rowe: CCTV in car park of new park and ride Transport for Wales railway station at Bow Street, outside Aberystwyth.
