Cheshire East considers future operation of CCTV service to reduce costs

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Options for how Cheshire East Council's CCTV service could be redesigned are to be discussed by councillors next week, ahead of a planned public consultation on the proposals.

The council's CCTV service operates all year round on a 24/7 basis and dealt with more than 20,000 incidents during the 17 months between April 2023 and October 2024.

Cheshire East Council has 165 fixed cameras and 25 mobile/deployable cameras which are used in hot spot areas to target antisocial behaviour, fly tipping etc. The CCTV control room also monitors 138 additional cameras in car parks, retail parks and some Council facilities. Demand for new camera installation/use and surveillance activity has increased in the past 5 years.

CCTV has a gross budget of £684,185 which includes staffing costs of £519,730 (76%) Income generation is approximately £232k leaving a net cost of £452k per annum.

The service provides and supports a wide range of functions and services. Activities are not just crime prevention, camera observation and evidence provision but an extension of other Council services including Highways, Housing, Regulatory Services etc. In these circumstances the CCTV service acts as an out of hours contact point reducing the need for separately funded arrangements.

As part of its medium-term financial strategy (MTFS) for 2025 to 2029, the council is carrying out a review of how the CCTV service could be run in the future, with the aim of it being able to generate more income and reduce its operating costs.

A series of options are now being proposed for how this could be achieved and will be discussed by the council's Environment and Communities Committee on Thursday, 30th January.

The options include making changes to staff shift patterns based on when demand is greatest. Other options include a minor restructure of the service, reducing the amount of 'live' surveillance – relying on recorded footage instead – and stopping the service completely.

The following four options have been considered:

Do Nothing: Retain the Service with no changes
This option would maintain CCTV service delivery as it currently exists; Two twelve-hour shifts with two operators per shift on a 24/7/365 footprint.

Retain the Service with minor restructure
Within this model it has been identified that there is scope to restructure the team releasing savings of circa £41,000.
Summary - no impact to current service delivery levels, retaining potential to grow income generating services going forward.

Full directed observation operations with reduced staff support
The development of a 'linked shift' rota would seek to reduce the number of operators on shift during the 24-hour period on weekdays (36 paid hours per day reduced from 48 hours). Weekends, where demand and risks of harm are greater, would continue with 2 operators per shift. Savings to gross budget £71,000.
Summary - small reduction to current service delivery levels, retaining current income with potential to grow further going forward.

A mix of direct observation and recorded surveillance with reduced staff support
The peak demand shift would operate over a working week with two 11- hour shifts between 7am and 11pm creating a six-hour cross over period between 12pm and 6pm. There would be no operator cover between 11 pm and 7 am each day instead there would be camera recording only. Savings to gross budget £200,000
Summary - significant impact to service delivery – knock on impacts to current income. Reduction in future income due to diminished 'live' service.

Cease all CCTV operations
The option to cease all CCTV provision would create a potential permanent revenue saving of £450k per annum, as the net costs of the service after income that would no longer be generated has been deducted. This value however be subject to the initial year 1 deductions of staff severance costs and in the longer-term the cost implications of decommissioning the CCTV network.

The CCTV service attracts income from town and parish councils and other more ad-hoc sources including external CCTV monitoring, alarm and barrier monitoring, door entry services and lone worker alarm monitoring. The majority of income (84%) is from town and parish council contributions for directed CCTV surveillance on the 24/7/365 operational model. Income has increased by 33% over the last five years with new external monitoring contracts, increased fees and charges and the introduction of new chargeable services.

As part of the service review there has also been consideration of greater income generation opportunity particularly given the recent completion of the Borough wide wireless network installation which provides an enhanced infrastructure to support wider system support.

This work includes the following proposals;

  • Attract new contracts for monitoring other CCTV systems.
  • Council wide contract review to determine services that may be brought 'in-house' and reduce Council spend (ongoing with procurement and facilities).
  • Scoping chargeable out of hours provision for neighbouring authorities.
  • A further maintenance contract review to reduce contract costs.

Councillor Mick Warren, chair of the environment and communities committee, said: "The value of CCTV is well-recognised, and the council's CCTV service continues to be in high demand from both internal and external partners to the council.

"The commitment to deliver this service – which is a discretionary and not statutory service – does however need to be balanced against the resources available to the council, which continues to operate in a very challenging financial climate.

"Significant work has already been done and remains ongoing to reduce costs and generate additional income from the CCTV service, so that it can remain sustainable, and we are now proposing to get feedback from the public and partners on four options for how the service could operate in the future.

"To be clear, no final decisions have been made, and subject to committee approval, a four-week public consultation is expected to launch next month."

It is envisaged that the consultation will run from early February 2025 over a 6 week period with final dates to be publicised in due course.

Following the public consultation, final proposals will be developed and taken back to the environment and communities committee for a decision, with the aim that any changes would go live at the start of the financial year 2025/2026.

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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

David Jefferay
Thursday 23rd January 2025 at 9:43 am
Folks, for openness, I am probably the Councillor who put this forward and pushed for it to be considered.
The cctv is a non-statutory service which costs about 500k per year to run. It is used primarily by the police, not the council and therefore my view is that it should be funded by the police not the council.
It is a useful service in terms of making people feel safe but when I sit on committees and have to decide on increasing council tax by 10%, closing leisure centres, libraries and tips, charging for green bins, collecting black bins every three weeks instead of fortnightly, stopping maintenance of green spaces and umpteen other awful decisions, in my mind hundreds of thousands of pounds for services that are used by other agencies and not the council should be on the table.
Regarding salaries of senior people, the council pays the going rate (in fact we have historically lost people and struggled to recruit because we were not competitive - this is evident from the number of unfilled positions at the council). You may think that they get paid too much but pay less and you get inexperienced people and that is part of the reason why the council is in a less than satisfactory position now.
Regarding pensions, they are, I believe, set nationally and therefore out of the control of the council.
Regarding guaranteed income, yes it is. However, there are also a growing list of statutory services that must be delivered for which demand is increasing faster than the council tax increases.
Just wanted to be open about my part in the cctv consultation.
Cllr Dave Jefferay
Terence Burgess
Thursday 23rd January 2025 at 11:39 am
If the cost of this is passed onto Cheshire Police they will undoubtedly propose an increase to the precept on our Council Tax bills.So either way costs are going to be passed on to everyone.
I would like to see a change in the law whereby the costs associated with CCTV cameras are shouldered solely by convicted criminals who have been caught by CCTV.
I realise this is radical but we're getting to a point financially where radical thinking needs to be looked at.
I'm no expert on legal matters I'm just putting my own personal thoughts out here.
David Jefferay
Thursday 23rd January 2025 at 2:39 pm
PS Probably should point out that my post above is a copy and paste from the same article on the Wilmslow.co.uk facebook page hence the other points regarding salaries, pensions etc which were points raised on that discussion.
Pete Wright
Friday 24th January 2025 at 8:54 am
There are too many cameras, they cost too much to operate, and my opinion is they leave a vague sense not of safety but of unease at being "surveilled" in a big brotherish way (is there proof of the claim they make people feel safe or is that just a theory?)
In any case actual miscreants would surely move to a location out of sight of cameras which can't cover everywhere, and if they're predominently for Police puposes it's surely the Police who should fund them, not council tax payers who probably weren't even consulted about their installation in the first place.
Perhaps a limited number of cameras could be justified but a slimmed down service at this time of severe funding shortages.
Jon Williams
Friday 24th January 2025 at 7:14 pm
This is the best way to go, you can't put the cost of a camera against a life Cheshire East.
"Retain the Service with minor restructure
Within this model it has been identified that there is scope to restructure the team releasing savings of circa £41,000.
Summary - no impact to current service delivery levels, retaining potential to grow income generating services going forward."
Pete Taylor
Sunday 26th January 2025 at 11:42 am
I’m curious how many successful convictions there have been as a direct result of these cameras; as it is the Police who mainly use them, surely their budget should pay for them, just like any of their other tools and equipment. If they don’t consider CCTV to be financially justified, they could decide to get rid of them.
Mark Goldsmith
Monday 27th January 2025 at 3:22 pm
Nick Jones
Tuesday 28th January 2025 at 9:52 am
@ Pete Taylor

Probably the same number that the costly unaffordable A34 'Noise' camera has successfully achieved...
Nick Jones
Tuesday 28th January 2025 at 12:48 pm
I stand corrected .. thanks Councillor Goldsmith !...
Pete Wright
Wednesday 29th January 2025 at 11:58 am
@ Mark Goldsmith
I don't think we can really use the single example you gave (3 clearly gormless foreign guys who travelled here for one day a few years ago) as justification for expensive CCTVs, but in any case the issue is cost and who should pay for the cameras, and whether it's the council or the Police. Of course tax payers pay one way or another but there is a difference regarding how it's budgeted for.
Simon Worthington
Thursday 30th January 2025 at 8:03 am
How’s about this is funded by a country wide court charge similar to the “victim” one on conviction? Let the crims pay.
Nicola Jones
Thursday 30th January 2025 at 10:11 am
I would like to add a comment to Dave Jefferay. All I hear about is the proposal to increase council tax by 10% along with all of the reduction in council services - libraries, bin collections, tips, road maintenance, road gritting in bad weather, CCTV, leisure centres - etc etc. I never hear anything about where our hard earned money is being spent, other than general comments about the increase in social care costs. The first port of call always appears to be to decrease services, never to look at council inefficiencies. Where is our money actually being spent and why are the council so much in debt. I appreciate that general costs have increased, but they have increased for us residents also, and residents do not have a bottomless pit of funds to keep taking from. You are making it the responsibility of residents to get the council out of a hole that they got into through poor management!

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