Assisting the UK government´s CCTV initiative

The paper discusses the technology being used in a UK Government initiative under which £153m is being made available to “crime reduction partnerships” in England and Wales to install CCTV in public areas. The aim is to reduce crime and the fear of crime. So far, the Government has awarded a total of £33m to more than 180 schemes. The perception in Government circles is that CCTV, when properly specified, installed and managed, can be used to improve security in, for example, car parks, town centres and housing estates. The paper sets out the background to the initiative and describes how PSDB is assisting the partnerships in preparing bids for funding, as well as explaining PSDB´s function in assessing bids. It also describes the key technical criteria, which have to be met for a scheme to be further considered for funding. The key criterion focuses on the need to meet an operational requirement, which leads to a full technical specification. The paper reports on some examples of approved bids and highlights features in them which made them successful. It also describes some examples of the innovative use of CCTV in public areas and cases where the proposal uses CCTV in combination with other imaging technologies such as facial recognition and vehicle license plate reading