CCTV monitoring of public space cameras in the small towns of Cornwall is in doubt as plans have gone before Cornwall County Council’s Cabinet that would do away with the central service.
Whereas most parts of the UK, where public space CCTV has survived austerity, have monitoring done by a council (in-house or outsourced) or by police, Cornwall has been unusual in recent years as the fire service (part of the county council) monitors CCTV, from its Critical Control Centre at Fire Service Headquarters, at Tolvaddon, near Redruth.
A report to councillors ahead of the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday at County Hall in Truro states that Cornwall Fire & Rescue Service (and HM Coastguards) are the only emergency services control in Cornwall. “The team understand the local geography and make decisions based upon their knowledge of the geography and the structure and assets of the service. During the recent [in summer 2021] G7 Summit, Critical Control were heavily involved in the planning and supporting the event with CCTV coverage.”
The centre also carries out for the county council and 13 town councils out of hours management of Highways calls and monitoring of CCTV. The county’s fire service however has been consistently overspending since 2018, according to the report, and due to ‘end-of-life technology and service budget pressures’, it’s come under review. One option is to outsource Tolvaddon, out of the county; or, to pay for new call and mobilisation software that’s stored in the cloud, and either keep call handling in Cornwall 24-hours, or outsource it at night. The council’s IT advises for cloud, especially for ‘critical services such as Blue Light and Lifeline’; and the county’s local servers failed on one occasion last year. Whatever, public space CCTV monitoring would cease (it’s monitored 48 hours per week, four hours more than the contracted 44 hours). To leave things as they are, or to use the council’s own IT, are ‘not considered viable’. The county council’s The Neighbourhoods Overview and Scrutiny Committee last autumn opted for going to the cloud and keeping call handling 24-hours in the county, but doing away with (or in the words of the report, ‘making other arrangements’) the CCTV monitoring, even though it brings in income.
As for Cornwall going in with another fire service, Devon & Somerset is ‘on-boarding another partner over the next 18 months and will not be able to accept another new partner until that is complete’.
The report to Cabinet states that the control centre sometimes has two controllers on duty (which is ‘below optimal’) and that ‘aspects of the role’ are not happening ‘such as regular 1-2-1s and non- mandatory training. This was a key element expressed within the practitioner sessions, highlighting the practical challenges of undertaking these activities under the current structure and resourcing numbers’. CCTV and answering requests from councils (typically from the larger towns of towns of Falmouth, Penzance and Truro) for viewing of images comes second in terms of controller time after their call and incident related work. The other towns covered by CCTV from Tolvaddon are Redruth, Camborne, Liskeard, Bodmin, Helston, Hayle, Perranporth, St Ives, Penryn, Wadebridge and Wheal Jewel.
As for work at the centre, on a shift pattern of two-days, two-nights, four-off, the report spoke of ‘a constant reliance on overtime to cover gaps within the rota and a lack of resilience cover’. While some operators suggested ‘potential extension of the monitoring both in terms of additional cameras and lengthening duration’, others suggested that the current number of cameras approaches the limit. Likewise, some operators saw ‘considerable value’ in the monitoring of CCTV for giving a wider picture, while others saw it ‘as a distraction from the main role and not a part of the job they enjoyed’.
The report to Cabinet proposes making the change in the financial year to April 2024, with ‘full implementation’ by April 2024.
Photo by Mark Rowe; public space CCTV, car park at Portreath near Redruth.
