Panel Puts Charnwood’s Cctv Network in Focus

RESIDENTS and businesses throughout Charnwood are being urged to share their experiences of the Borough’s CCTV network.

The call for comments has been made by Charnwood Borough Council’s CCTV Scrutiny Panel which is focusing on the way the 164-camera network is monitored plus the availability and cost of cameras.

The panel wants to hear from residents, partner organisations, community groups or lobby groups on their experiences of CCTV in Charnwood. The review ends in September.

Councillor David Snartt, the Council’s Cabinet Member for Neighbourhood Services, said: “Scrutiny plays a crucial role in examining Council work, policies and decisions.

“The scrutiny panel’s work around CCTV is to focus on how effective it is in deterring crime and tackling anti-social behaviour. They are also keen to explore how it is being monitored and its availability and cost across the Borough.

“CCTV plays an important role in providing reassurance for members of the public as well as its role in reducing/detecting crime so it is crucial that we monitor how effective it is.”

The Panel is chaired by Councillor Brenda Seaton. She said: “It is really important that our communities tell us what they think about CCTV and share their experiences of our camera network.”

Rather than making decisions, the role of scrutiny is to improve decision-making by others through reviewing the decisions they make and suggesting improvements that could be made.  Scrutiny bodies therefore act in a similar way to select committees in Parliament. 

In addition to reviewing decisions and performance, scrutiny can look at particular topics in more detail.

The use of panels set up for a specific purpose can be a powerful tool for gathering evidence on that topic and developing detailed and well argued recommendations.

By focusing on a particular topic, scrutiny panels are able to gather evidence from a number of sources, including customers and other people directly affected by it and experts from outside the Council. This provides the opportunity for the public to influence the policy-making process.

For more information on scrutiny panels, contact Democratic Services at the Council on 01509 634787 or email democracy@charnwood.gov.uk