Edinburgh CCTV system expensive and out of date

Edinburgh taxpayers pay the equivalent of £800,00 to Police Scotland for a CCTV system that no longer meets requirements.

In total the system costs £955,354, and Police Scotland, the highest users, pay back just £128,000.

The council has 226 CCTV cameras including 17 that are re-deployable. Around £634,000 is spend on staff operations of the service and almost £62,000 goes towards maintenance.

Labour Cllr Gordon Munro said: “There’s £827,354 that we do not get back from that – the highest user of this service is Police Scotland.

“We make no demand on Police Scotland – but Police Scotland make a demand on us for the CCTV images. We get no income from them, we get no investment in the infrastructure. Yet we provide them with £2.6 million a year, ten times more than any other local authority in Scotland.”

Independent Cllr Claire Bridgman added: “My understanding is that the current state of the CCTV system is that it’s literally creaking at the seams.”

The council’s internal audit report revealed that there is a high risk over “a lack of corporate CCTV strategy” and “a number of significant control gaps” relating to data protection, the council’s information security and records management policies.

The council’s executive director of resources, Stephen Moir, said: “The current CCTV network is no longer suitable for the future. A simple replacement with a like-for-like CCTV network is not the right answer for the authority or for the city.

“We need to look at a much more integrated solution with our public partners.”

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