In the shires, shared services are already happening. Mark Rowe was invited into one county town’s control room.
The wall of monitors inside the Shropshire Council monitoring centre was, symbolically, half new flat screens and half older TV-style monitors. Symbolic because, while it’s a rare control room (or any workplace) that stands still, Shropshire’s is changing role and the geographical spread of places it monitors. On the flat screens, operators can dial in to cameras in the towns of Telford, Dawley, Oakengates and Wellington. The five spot monitors on the command desk show tours from the heritage-style dome cameras covering Shrewsbury, the county town. Dave Roberts, the Shropshire environmental enforcement manager, says: “We use cameras for crime and disorder, for our main role, but also security and safety. We will use them for licensing [enforcement] … what we will do is cover and protect our officers if they are issuing fixed penalty notices for dog fouling or littering.” Dave stresses that CCTV like the parking enforcement staff are there to serve people rather than dish out fines to them at every opportunity. To quote from the ‘enforcement concordat’: ‘The primary function local government enforcement and educational work is to protect the public, the environment and groups such as consumers and workers. At the same time, carrying out enforcement functions in an equitable, practicable and consistent manner helps to promote a thriving national and local economy.’ <br><br>The plain building – in a nondescript street – is now called a monitoring rather than a CCTV centre on purpose, for the camera monitoring and out of hours business is about half and half. The public’s calls to Shropshire county council come to the centre after office hours. That can include traffic accidents, burst pipes, River Severn floods; stray (or missing) dogs, repairs required to housing stock; about homeless people, vulnerable adults and children. To be brief, it’s important that the call is taken down, and details sent to the right department. This evening and weekend work dovetails nicely with the largely daytime CCTV work; though judging from a promotional video of what the CCTV operators have dealt with, the centre is busy with what is called the night-time economy. <br><br>The recorded incidents show the worth and the persistent stumbling blocks of public space CCTV. First, a man pictured carrying a baby, having taken it after an argument with his girlfriend. The West Mercia Police control centre was able to view live images, so that two officers were able to separate man and baby. Next, an afternoon fight on a Shrewsbury shopping street among several young men that eventually spills onto the street. It’s a case of passers-by assuming someone else has dialled 999. In this and, more usually, late-night fights outside fast-food outlets, CCTV operators can tell police who are the culprits to arrest. Otherwise, someone who started a fight and got knocked out on the floor can, by the time the police arrive, be treated as a victim. So there’s no denying here or anywhere else the uses of CCTV as a tool. But: how to measure those uses, and to put a value on them? And, all too often, the evidence goes to police, who months later get the crown court judge and media credit for a criminal’s conviction. To take that retrieved baby: its safety is priceless. But if you cannot put a price on it or other public space CCTV work, how can you justify it? On this point Dave says: “CCTV is expensive, if it’s done properly, by [human] monitors, who understand, and are fair and proportional and look after people’s human rights.” <br><br>On the walls of the monitoring centre are the usual maps – Shropshire is a wide and long county – and white-boards and shelves of folders. On a side room, where footage can be burned to disc, is a pinboard with newspaper cuttings about the centre. Because to return to that out of hours work; the centre is very much the public face of the council when it answers calls. Take the floods. Last issue featured Shropshire’s agreement with the Environment Agency whereby the agency can view Shrewsbury cameras that give a view of the river. Thanks to Video Channel Manager software from Vemotion, Shropshire can let agency staff view live images – but Shropshire keeps camera control. As reported last issue, the agency can judge from the images how the flood waters are rising, without the risk and time of driving to the river in person. The centre has gone digital with the Darlex recorder and recently had installed the Liberator, also from manufacturer Tecton. Also used is the Synectics control product. “It’s about working together, security on the ground, police, parking officers and the [monitoring centre] operators working together,” sums up Dave Roberts. “That’s how it’s always got to work.” <br><br>The enforcers<br><br>Earlier, at another office in Shrewsbury, senior civil enforcement officer (CEO) Geoff Allen says: “It’s about the human touch, isn’t it?” He is, in other words, a traffic warden, with police-style black epaulettes and a blue shirt with the rectangular Shropshire Council blue logo on his left chest. “Unfortunately, if a penalty charge is issued to a customer, we do try to go the extra mile to explain.” Generally, once it’s explained why someone has fallen foul of the parking regulations, and it is explained reasonably and calmly, they accept. <br><br>While parking enforcement is not core manned guarding work, some guard contractors do do car park work; or car park enforcement is part of a guard’s work, keeping football fans from parking on a retail park, for instance. Something parking wardens have in common with shop security guards, doormen and others doing security – the ‘wider policing family’ to use the phrase – is that they enforce rules, whether it’s not allowing someone into a pub because he’s wearing casual shoes or clothes, or telling someone they are parking on double yellows. There is no avoiding the conflict; the uniformed officer confronting a member of the public for doing something wrong, or warning them that they are about to do something they should not: whether that’s leaving a shop with goods without paying, or leaving their car in a marked loading bay. <br><br>As for conflict resolution, part of it is how the officer views the other person, as articulated in language. Note Geoff Allen’s use of the word ‘customer’, as in customer care. Allowing the customer a way out of an argument, is one method. “If you are pushing the customer into a corner, that obviously starts to get the customer’s back up.” You give the ‘customer’ an opportunity to come to a solution, taking away the conflict. ‘Do you realise you are parked in a loading bay?’ gives the driver a chance to admit, yes, he is. <br><br>As with customer-facing (to use the jargon) security officer and door superviser jobs, head-cams have proved to affect people causing trouble, or about to. Even the turning on or off of the head-cam calms a situation, Dave Roberts reports. Hence a head-cam provides lone worker protection. Use of the cameras was risk-assessed; for instance, they are best not worn on the lapel, in case they aim at female bosoms; a possible conflict situation! An officer wore one for a week, as a trial, and it worked. That an officer’s conversation is being filmed and can be recorded does cover the officer from a member of the public’s claim that the officer was rude, as an attempt to get let off the parking fine. Head-cam evidence besides putting the officer in the clear (provided he has indeed not been rude!) saves managers the time of interviewing the officer and investigating the claim. Something to bear in mind though is storage of all that video data; Shropshire has been able to turn to its IT department. <br><br>Also the name on the officer’s uniform. Shropshire council rather than a private contractor’s name provokes more recognition and respect, even though it might be the same person wearing one year the contract firm’s shirt and now the in-house, council badge. Partly, conflict depends on the policy set. Does the council want tickets slapped on car windscreens, to bring in as much money as possible? Or, while still giving penalties to wrong-doers, because what else can you do to someone who keeps abusing parking lines and signs, do you apply some leeway, keeping other factors in mind. Do you want to educate people to do what’s right? Take blue badges, giving disabled people the right to park in spaces for blue badges only. Some people genuinely holding a badge may lend it to friends or family. “We got so many complaints about the misuse of blue badges,” superviser Shaun Sutton says. First, the number of blue badges in cars in the centre of Shrewsbury were surveyed. Next, leaflets went out explaining that misuse of the badge is a crime, and can lead to a court fine. The survey, done again, found about 30 per cent fewer blue badges in use. Hence more parking spaces available for the genuinely disabled. The council can besides ring the owner of the blue badge if the badge is seen in use in town; if owners answer the home phone, they can be warned about the misuse of the badge. <br><br>The civil enforcement officers’ tasks have widened. For instance: highway inspection. If a utility is digging up a road and doing something or taking longer than it should, that can lead to a fine. They carry Pub and Shopwatch radios and so know of the £20 note frauds, who are the vagrants, the ASBO- and CRASBO-holders; they are – like Gill Gale, also around the table at this discussion – a uniformed presence on the street. If police want a road closing, a CEO can put out cones. If a shopper has lost a child, the CEO can listen over the Shopwatch radio and act as extra eyes and ears. One query could be – as in many other towns and cities – that we, the public, don’t quite know who the private and public police are. These Shropshire CEOs do get confused with police community support officers. In our May issue, an article about Bath (‘Meet the marshals’) raised the variety of day and night-time wardens, with roles ranging from ambassadorial-soft (keeping the peace in taxi queues) to crime-hard (identifying known shop thieves). On hearing of the partnership work in Shropshire, I wonder: does it matter that various uniformed enforcement services people are on duty? So long as shoppers and businesses feel reassured and are safer? And criminals are deterred? For all the uniformed people have in common that by doing their job they will upset people. Leaving aside that those people if caught are in the wrong – whether illegal parkers or fly-tippers, or drunks throwing cans on the grass, told to pick up their litter. The boundaries have blurred between police and other enforcers. A county council civilian does recorded interviews according to PACE to prepare cases of ‘environmental crime’ such as fly-tipping, some done in Shropshire on a commercial scale by outsiders. What all enforcers share is the ups and downs of the job. Some days are a breeze; some days you do good, such as reunite drivers with their lost car (it does happen!). Other days, it seems everyone is parked illegally and every driver gets cross. And however you the officer might sympathise with the driver’s excuse – and people do tell such lies to try to get out of a parking fine – once the CEO has produced the legal document, it has to be handed to the offender or attached to the vehicle. And while people may say with reproach, ‘you never see a bobby on the beat’, no-one ever says that of a traffic warden. Not the last comparison of a traffic warden with a retail guard or doorman is the need for integrity: you ought not to be tempted to let someone off, just because they know you. The chances are, others are watching, and if you let one off, how can you do your job tomorrow? While there’s no doubting the sincerity of the Shropshire CEOs’ customer service, they know that to work with fairness and consistency is not the same as being everyone’s mate. The nagging worry for any enforcement workers – how is your work judged, apart from concrete measures such as number of penalty tickets dished out? How do you measure the advice given to a member of the public, such as where the nearest taxi rank is? Or the sensitive resolution of a shop’s A-board illegally on the pavement? A penalty fine brings the local authority income; but do you want an angry shop owner, or a business jeopardised?
