Agenda and minutes

No declarations of interest were made.

RESOLVED

that the minutes of the meeting of the Panel held on 27th September, 2018, be received and approved as a correct record.

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and reminded Members that the review of the Council’s current CCTV provision had commenced in October 2017.  Two site visits had been undertaken to the Sherwood Lodge Control Room to give Members the opportunity to view the control room during both daytime and evening operations. 

The Committee had also considered additional information at the last meeting regarding CCTV budgets for 2018/19, incident categories and CCTV statistics from the previous year.

The report to be considered at tonight’s meeting contained the following:-

• A summary of the CCTV Shared Service Arrangement;
• Location maps of cameras within Ashfield;
• Recent performance statistics;
• Guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office and the national picture of CCTV;
• Ashfield District Council’s communication of CCTV.

The Chairman welcomed the Council’s Service Manager for Community Safety, Rebecca Whitehead and the Community Protection Team Leader, Chris Parkes to the meeting who were in attendance to assist the discussion and review as appropriate.

The Service Manager gave an overview of the recent CCTV Control Room visit and felt it had been a worthwhile exercise to see first-hand, the evening operation in progress and to speak with Ben Brown the CCTV Control Room Team Leader.

The Community Protection Team Leader then proceeded to outline the latest control room statistics (via presentational slides) and highlighted the key areas of note in relation to camera locations and usage, recorded incidents and categories of incidents.

As part of the ensuing discussion, it was acknowledged that the most sought after data namely “the percentage of viewing that had resulted in CCTV evidence forming part of a prosecution or other formal action” was still to be provided by the Police as part of the performance indicators detailed within the Shared Service Agreement.

Committee were advised that the Council was due to sign up to the Agreement within the next month or so along with the other two local authority partners. This particular data, to be provided by the Police, would be pivotal in enabling the Council to measure how effectively the provision of CCTV by the Council assisted in the reduction and deterrence of crime whilst increasing community safety.  It was hopeful that ongoing discussions between the three authorities within the Shared Service (the Core Group) and appropriate Police Inspectors would establish an agreed process for obtaining this data on a regular basis.

At this point in the meeting a lengthy debate took place and Members considered and discussed the following:-

·         the impressive set up of the Control Room and the technology available;

·         the variance in quality of camera clarity during darkness, and the vast improvements displayed by HD models currently used by Broxtowe Borough Council;

·         the good value for money of the current Shared Service Agreement including both the CCTV monitoring provision and the 24-hour contact centre for all out-of-hours calls made to the Council which was provided at a cost of around £2,200 per month;

·         the desire for the Council to upgrade to HD cameras as soon as funding  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.