Agenda item

As detailed in the recommendations and that the Council invite the Police and Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable to review Police investment in the local CCTV network and service as part of reviewing future options.

The Cabinet Member for Education introduced the report which was for consideration of the North Wales regional proposal for an integrated public closed circuit television monitoring (CCTV) system based on a twin monitoring centre model.

The Chief Executive provided the background to the report and explained that in 2009, the six North Wales local authorities and North Wales Police commissioned a project to assess the feasibility of an integrated regional service for CCTV for public spaces, in support of crime prevention and detection and community safety.

In Flintshire there was a complex set of local service level agreements with town councils where costs of some localised service provision was shared.

The proposed regional model which was appended to the report was a fully-integrated regional service with the technical ‘joining up’ of the existing six equipment rooms with two control rooms surveying and responding to the transmitted images.

Across North Wales, the CCTV services currently cost £2.12m per annum.  The capital requirement to set up a twin centre monitoring service was estimated at £2.067m.  A bid for £2.4m had been made to the new Regional Collaboration Fund (RCF); if the bid was successful, the funds would cover the capital costs of the project and other costs.  The collaboration had already been allocated Invest to Save (I2S) funds by Welsh Government, which was a repayable loan.  The current position was that the previous and the new Minister for Local Government and Communities did not support a capital grant allocation from the RCF and instead, encouraged the region to access I2S.  All six Councils and North Wales Police believed that capital grant funding was required to support the business case.

Without an RCF capital grant, the level of base cost would not be affordable without guaranteed income levels to subsidise costs and the project did not guarantee value for money for future years post 2014.  A decision to prioritise the CCTV service for significant additional investment during a period of severe budget pressure, solely based on the option of a regional service, would be outside of a wider process of setting priorities as part of the Council’s plans and Medium Term Financial Plan and was not advised as a comparative investment choice.  Other Councils in the region had reached a similar position and shared a disappointment that available national capital grant was not being prioritised for the project.

Members expressed their concern that the RCF grant had not been supported for such a valuable service of crime prevention and detection and community safety and felt contact needed to be made with the Police and Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable to review Police investment in the local CCTV network and service as part of reviewing further options.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That in balancing the benefits and risks of a local and a regional model for future CCTV services, the proposed regional model should not be supported as offering value for money and being in the best interests of the Council unless significant non-repayable national capital/revenue funding is awarded;

(b)       That the proposed regional model cannot be supported and the Council considers its options for a future service including a continuing local service and a sub-regional option with one or more councils and North Wales Police;

(c)        That the Council scope the second phase review in partnership with North Wales Police and other partners as set out in 3.16 of the report; and

(d)       That the Council invite the Police and Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable to review Police investment in the local CCTV network and service as part of reviewing future options.