Ys t a f e l l o e d d â Go l y g f a | CCTVIma g e


to be sent directly to the police control room. The team also has access to the Airwave system as well as providing the ‘Store Net’ and ‘Night Net’ Radio systems.


However, there’s always room for improvement


and Jayne says an assigned police liaison officer would certainly add value. In this development of a multi-functional con-


trol room, Jayne has already set up a lone-worker monitoring system. Using the iComply I-Call system, the control room receives 2000 to 3000 lone worker requests from various departments such as Home Care, building maintenance and property engineers. They also control the traffic bollards in the town


centre, and hold all the emergency packs/boxes for Environmental Health Department for them to col- lect as required for major health incidents, such as food poisoning, norovirus or problems at a residen- tial care home. The control room is one of three customer serv-


ice locations providing services to the citizens of Bridgend 24 hours a day and Jayne’s line manager is Beverley Davies, the Customer Services Manager, who is responsible for the Customer Service Centre, dealing with upwards of 30,000 visitors a year and the Telephone Contact Centre, dealing with around 260,000 telephone calls a year. 643-643 is the only telephone number citizens of Bridgend have to remember in relation to Council services. Out of hours following infor- mation messages about refuse collections, burials and flooding, the caller is connected with a member of Jayne’s team. They also respond to all emails sent in to ‘Talktous’ the primary email contact address for the Council, forwarding on emails to the appropriate department if they are unable to deal with themselves. They are also responsible for monitoring the Council’s Twitter


account which is especially useful for monitoring sporting events, fes- tivals and markets. And the control room has a direct link to the DVLA for noise pollution (car alarms) to assist the on-duty environmental health officer. This for Jayne is only part of a forward thinking programme to take maximum advantage of the tremendous asset a 24/7 control room can provide without reducing its effectiveness and achievements. Laying


their own fibre as part of the regeneration of the Porthcawl harbour, marina and some smaller town council systems, extending the services of the control room to include key holding and providing a consultancy service to local schools are just some of the future aims. Altogether, it is a major development, recognising all the benefits of


the Control room and shows a lot of innovative ideas, which could give many CCTV control room managers food for thought.


Multifunctional future Apart from meeting all these proactive and highly committed CCTV


managers, seeing all the superb scenery as we travelled through the lovely countryside as we moved between locations and the lovely weather, what really amazed me overall was the extremely high proportions of the systems visited that had enthusiastically adopted the multifunctional approach to the operation of a CCTV system, achieving the benefits of scale and improving the effectiveness and value for money of the system. My second impression was how little reference was made


throughout to budget cuts and how many managers were thinking of future improvements and developments. I wonder whether these two points are interrelated, as the more services a unit takes on, the more recognition and support it would receive from councillors. Now, I appreciate that the majority of the uni-


tary authorities visited have populations well over 100,000 with Rhondda-Cynon-Taff exceeding 200,000, much larger than many of the Shire Districts in England. The relative cost of communi- ty safety as a proportion of their overall budget for education, social services, etc. is relatively small. There are, however, many examples of additional


services even small authorities could consider, with relatively small capital investment, that would introduce income without significant additional staffing costs. Key holding, lone-worker monitor- ing, out-of-hours response and so on are options that immediately come to mind, and possibly help ensure its survival. In the next issue of CCTV Image (Spring 2013),


Jayne Thomas and Beverley Davies at Bridgend


Wint e r 2013 20


we continue our tour of Wales, with four more control rooms: Caerphilly County, The University of Glamorgan, Rhondda-Cynon-Taff and Merthyr Tydfil.


Issue sponsor www.securitynewsdesk.com


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