Civica has helped save an estimated £90,000 in police time by extending Wigan Council’s use of its Public Protection software to include local police stations in Greater Manchester. 

By allowing access to Civica’s Authority Public Protection software at local police stations, Wigan Council has made it possible for officers to request ‘clips’ from CCTV footage over specified time periods by logging requests electronically.

The council is also trialling Authority Public Protection as a centralised data resource for its Civil Contingencies Group, which will give all emergency services access to common data in the event of a major incident in the area.

Wigan Council manages over 550 CCTV cameras that monitor the town’s streets, schools and public buildings, providing information to police officers often involved in time-consuming journeys to view footage and compile evidence against offenders caught committing a range of crimes or anti-social behaviour.

CCTV operatives can now find clips based on the location and time specified and attach them to police incident records which can then be viewed by the officer requesting the footage. Multiple clips can be attached to the same record providing an evidence log that can be used in the preparation of any subsequent prosecution. Previously police officers would have to fill in a paper form to request footage for an incident in the town from the Council, and then visit the local police station to pick up the film – taking approximately 90 hours per month of police time.

Craig Round, Information and Communications Manager, Wigan Council Environmental Services Department, said: “The return the council and our police are getting has been immediate in terms of time and resources saved. As a result of working closely with Civica consultants and the potential of the technology, we are looking to centralise the use of Authority Public Protection across departments within the council and with external organisations with which we work, particularly in the field of civil contingencies.”
 
System data is already accessible from four locations – two operational and two strategic units – and Wigan Council is considering expanding this in the future by working with police partners. The council is also benefiting because Civica’s software speeds up the reporting of damage to schools and other buildings as well as capturing incidents that would previously have gone unreported. The system also enables the allocation of repair tasks to appropriate local teams as quickly as possible, reducing the length of time a building is left insecure or unsafe.

A Civil Contingencies model is also being piloted to help the Council with crisis management – one area of the system that it hopes to never have to use. The Council has set up a remedial Civil Contingencies Group with its local emergency services and other partners.

Tony Hughes, director, Civica Public Protection, said: “Wigan Council is a great example of a forward-thinking local authority that is really exploiting the potential of Authority Public Protection to integrate different data sources to provide maximum benefit for its citizens. The Council is already gaining major returns on its investment and we look forward to continuing to work closely with the Civil Contingencies Group to maximise the effectiveness of the technology during the trial and for its future use.”

Civica’s Authority Public Protection is the system that holds all information centrally, so that the Council’s control room - open 24 hours per day, seven days a week - has instant access to details of chemicals held on a particular business premises in the case of a major gas leak or fire, for example. Linked with the Council’s CCTV cameras the system provides a level of detail and knowledge to the emergency services not previously available.

Wigan Council uses Authority Public Protection across a range of services and has maximised its investment by applying the system to other relevant areas and replacing obsolete or inadequate systems that can be difficult to support and maintain. The list of council functions that Civica’s software is helping includes:

– Environmental Health
– Trading Standards
– Environmental Services and Envirocrime
– Community Safety (Anti-Social Behaviour)
– Planning Engineers: Street Scene, Cleansing, Planning and Regeneration
– Housing Grants
– Civil contingencies
– CCTV for reporting damage and/or break-ins
– Mobile working initiatives, for example “Digipens” for Trading Standards Inspections and PDA forms for Pest Control

Smoke free legislation is catered for as are new security risk assessments (INU) and internally the system is used to generate performance management reports which are published to an intranet page for officers, managers and executives. The reports provide an instant picture of how various sections are coping with workload and target response times.

About Civica plc
Civica plc (www.civica.co.uk) is a market leader in software-based solutions that help public sector organisations to improve service delivery to their communities, with particular expertise in local government, housing, law enforcement, education and healthcare. Blending consulting, software and managed services, the group supplies more than 1,500 customers in the UK, Australia, Singapore and the USA, including approximately 89 per cent of the UK’s local authorities.