Issue details

This report sets out the results of a detailed review of the Council’s Community Safety and CCTV services and provides options for future delivery.

The Council’s Corporate Strategy (2017-2023) includes an action to “review our approach to Community Safety, including an analysis of CCTV, to ensure that we make the Borough as safe a place as possible”.

This report sets out the results of a recent review into Community Safety and CCTV.  A wide-ranging review of the services took place between September 2019 and June 2020.  Desk research, statistical research and interviews fed into the analysis.  The detailed results of the review can be found at Appendix A to the report.

In summary, it confirms that the work of the Community Safety Team is both efficient and effective and provides a good example of partnership working between the Council, the Police and other local agencies.  A recent vacancy within the Team, and a decision by the County Council to take back responsibility for the Supporting Families programme, offers an opportunity to slightly amend the structure and responsibilities of the Team.

The review included an investigation into the impact of the “Access All Areas” event, which aims to divert young people from getting involved in anti-social behaviour during the school summer holidays.  Whilst popular with young people, it is difficult to provide direct evidence that the event actually leads to a reduction in anti-social behaviour.  However, rather than stopping the event in the future, it is proposed that the Council continues to run the activities as a leisure initiative but that a small fee is charged for each young person who wishes to participate in the event.

The review of CCTV has raised some questions about the efficiency and effectiveness of the current arrangements.  A significant number of the cameras provide poor picture quality and have very low usage.  In many cases the cameras were installed to deal with a particular problem in a local area which no longer exists.  They are, in effect, obsolete.

The main value of a CCTV camera is to provide a record of activity which might subsequently be used as evidence in a criminal prosecution.   As such, there is a question over the value of providing a 24-hour monitoring service.  In reality, there are very few incidents where the Police are requested to respond to an immediate incident spotted by the CCTV control room.

It is therefore proposed that the Council upgrades its network of CCTV cameras to improve picture quality, reduces the number of cameras, and moves away from 24-hour monitoring, with data being stored on a cloud-based system.  It is also proposed to hire temporary re-deployable CCTV cameras to deal with particular “hot spot” problems.

Over the last 24 months, the Council has been experimenting with an increased uniformed security presence in Fareham Town Centre.  The trial has proved to be successful.  It is therefore proposed that the financial savings created by a smaller CCTV network be used to expand the Council’s uniformed enforcement team from 6 to 8 officers.  This would result in an increase in uniformed patrols across the Borough.

It is important to note that the Borough of Fareham is a safe place to live, with low levels of crime when compared to other local authority areas. The proposals within this report seek to ensure that the Borough remains a safe place for local residents and visitors, whilst providing good value for money.