Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

(a)  To agree the minutes of the Cabinet Member (Policing and Equalities) meeting held on 21 March 2022

(b)  Matters arising

The minutes of the meeting held on 21 March 2022 were agreed and signed as a true record. There were no matters arising.

Report of the Director of Streetscene and Regulatory Services

To consider the petition ‘Requesting the installation of CCTV in Caludon Park’ bearing 1858 signatures, which is being supported by Councillor F Abbott, a Wyken Ward Councillor, who has been invited to the meeting for the consideration of this item along with the petition organiser.

The Cabinet Member considered a report of the Director of Streetscene and Regulatory Services which responded to a petition that requested CCTV to be installed at Caludon Park.

The petition bearing 1858 signatures was submitted to the Council in July 2021 and was supported by Councillor F Abbott. The petition read: “We the undersigned petition the Council to provide CCTV coverage for the park to stop our children being assaulted and so that people are no longer afraid to walk through”.

In addition, the petition provided the following justification: “After several recent attacks the local community have finally had enough”.

Caludon Castle Park is an area of green space within the portfolio of Streetscene and Greenspace. It is a popular and highly valued park which is well used by the local community. The park is a designated Green Flag Park which is an internationally recognised standard of excellence. The Park is situated within the Wyken Ward and is 99,010 sqm in area. 

Approximately, 10 years ago, the Parks Service independently purchased two NOMAD camera systems including one for Caludon Castle Park.

These cameras were independent to those managed by ESU or West Midlands Police and were not part of the City Council’s core CCTV network. The cameras record images for 72 hours before it is recorded over, therefore, any data has to be downloaded within 72 hours of the incident. This has to be done on site via a laptop with suitable wireless technology and can be transferred to a flash drive memory stick.

If the Police required any recorded footage, they had to apply to the City Council Information Governance Team and would need to provide a completed WA170 Digital Viewing Request form. The Parks Service would be notified and would meet with a designated police officer in the park and using a dedicated laptop, download the required footage. The footage would need to be saved to a memory stick to be kept by the police. This is a laborious and outdated operation and no longer compliant with legislation including BS 7958:2016, the Information Commissioner’s CCTV Code of Practice or the Coventry Communications Centre CCTV Control Room Code of Practice for CCT.

There are over 200 green spaces administered by the City Council. The Park Service receive many requests for CCTV to be provided in our parks and green spaces. Such requests would need to be balanced against various considerations such as:

a.  Costs – the estimated cost of installing a new fully compliant CCTV system in the Park is approximately £15,700 (November 2021), with an additional cost of approximately £40,000 to link up the system. This did not include the annual monitoring and maintenance costs for the new cameras. The cost of supplying and monitoring the number of cameras required to monitor the entirety of a large park such as Caludon Castle Park was outside of the Parks Service budget.

b.  Number and severity of reported incidents – overall the number of reported incidents of crime and anti-social  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Report of the Director of Streetscene and Regulatory Services

The Cabinet Member considered a report of the Director of Streetscene and Regulatory Services which sought approval to the introduction of a discretionary chargeable service for the provision of pre-application advice for licensing applications, and a check and send service for volume applications.

The Licensing Team (the team) are committed to working with applicants early in the application process to assist them with submitting a valid application and to ensure that the application would be acceptable. The licensing regime is often challenging and could deter some applicants from making an application, so the team proactively encourage pre-application advice as it would provide applicants with clarity and reassurance about their application. In addition, it provided an opportunity for the team to highlight any issues or concerns with the proposals.

Providing pre-application advice prior to an application being made is a discretionary service. Section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972 permits this discretionary service as it is classed as conducive or incidental in relation to carrying out the licensing function.

Currently, the team offers pre-application advice free of charge to applicants who request it. On average, this could take up to an hour and longer if a site visit was deemed necessary.

The team deal with a variety of licensable activities under a range of different legislation, with the following being the most complex and time consuming:

-  Licensing Act 2003: new premises, variations, minor variations, transfers, and variation to the designated premises supervisor.

-  Gambling Act 2005: new premises, variations and transfers

-  Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013: new and renewals

-  Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1972: sexual entertainment venues, sex establishments and street trading consents

Under the licensing legislation, the Licensing Authority is both responsible for the administration and determination of applications and although it has a statutory duty to administer applications, that duty does not extend to the provision of pre-application advice and assistance.

In 2021, the team dealt with nearly 500 applications under the legislation detailed above with the most time-consuming ones requiring some form of statutory consultation with the responsible authorities. It was proposed that the discretionary pre-application fees be applied to applications made under the legislation listed above because those applications tend to be more complex and could potentially require more officer time.

The proposal to introduce a discretionary chargeable pre-application service would be beneficial to the Council and to the applicants. The introduction of fees to formalise the giving of advice would be covered within the costs of running the service as appose to being at the expense of it.

The level of pre-application advice and the fee charged would be determined by the type of application to be completed. It was proposed that the advice would be charged on an hourly basis depending on the level of support needed by the applicant.

A check and send service would also be made available whereby officers would do a pre-submission validation check to ensure that there were no errors or omissions that may invalidate  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

There are no outstanding issues.

There were no outstanding issues.

To consider any other items of business which the Cabinet Member decides to take as a matter of urgency because of the special circumstances involved.

There were no other items of urgent public business.