City looks for supplier to provide as many as 200 devices to record incidents
Leicester City Council is to invest in up to 200 body-worn cameras in a bid to help reduce attacks made on frontline staff, and bring to justice those who attack council workers.
The authority has issued a contract notice looking a single supplier to provide a fleet of 50 cameras, as well as the necessary supporting software and services. The images and sound captured must “of a standard that will be acceptable as evidence to the police, Crown Prosecution Service, and the courts”.
Data collected will be stored at the council’s datacentre, with information accessed and processed at any of the council’s offices throughout the city.
The council expects that it “may require up to 150 additional” cameras over the course of a contract that will run for an initial term of two years, plus three optional one-year extensions.
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The technology is being rolled out “having been identified as a potential means of reducing assaults on frontline staff”, the council said. The cameras will be used by workers in a “few different service areas”. This could include the likes of parking wardens, environment officers, and other enforcement officials.
Body-worn cameras are already commonplace among police forces, and last year the government spent £2m equipping all 5,600 prison officers in England and Wales with the technology. They are also used by other branches of the civil service, including the enforcement officers of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (pictured above).
Local authorities are increasingly investing in the devices, with Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council recently issuing a contract notice for the provision of 12 of the devices, for use by the council’s environmental protection officers.
