Agenda item

The Director of Legal and Governance Services submitted a report that sought approval of the proposed corporate Surveillance Policy for 2022/23.

Guidance underpinning the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 states that elected members should review the Council’s use of RIPA powers and set the RIPA policy at least once per annum.

Use of RIPA powers are considered annually by Corporate Affairs and Audit Committee as part of the annual report of the Senior Information Risk Owner.  Statistical information on use of the powers will be reported to a future meeting of the Culture and Communities Scrutiny Panel.

The report provided background information, advising that RIPA was the law governing the use of surveillance techniques by public authorities, including local authorities. RIPA requires that when public authorities need to use covert techniques to obtain private information about someone, they only do so if surveillance is necessary, proportionate, and compatible with human rights. Typically this relates to suspected criminal activity that is likely to result in a custodial sentence of six months or more.

This policy is updated annually and was last approved by the then Executive Member for Environment, Finance and Governance in August 2021.

As reported in the last annual review of this policy, in late 2020 the Council was subject to a (periodic) inspection by the IPCO regarding its use of RIPA powers. In summary, the conclusions of this inspection (reported in full to Corporate Audit and Affairs Committee on 29 April 2020) were that the Council has a strong compliance regime for the use of RIPA powers, with the use of the Electronic Document and Records Management System highlighted as a particular strength.

No formal recommendations for improvement were made by the IPCO following this inspection, however the Council agreed with the IPCO that from now on it will maintain an overarching Surveillance Policy (Appendix 1), which will cover CCTV, RIPA, non-RIPA covert surveillance and the surveillance of employees.  This continues to be reflected in the policy and content was reviewed as part of the 2022 annual review.  The 2022 review has also had due regard to draft guidance published by the Information Commissioners Office in October 2022 ‘Employment practices: monitoring at work draft guidance[1].

This was necessary to ensure that any covert surveillance undertaken by the Council that does not meet the RIPA threshold is lawful and that due regard is given to human rights and to data protection rights, and to clarify for the benefit of employees when and under what circumstances they will be subject to surveillance.

OPTIONS

Other potential decision(s) and why these have not been recommended

The Council could choose to restrict this policy to RIPA activity only and develop and implement separate policies relating to non-RIPA surveillance, employee surveillance and other issues not currently covered by policy. However, this is not recommended, as a single policy provides for a coherent and systematic approach and is in line with the Council’s commitment to openness and transparency.

ORDERED

That the Executive Member approves the proposed corporate Surveillance Policy for 2022/23.

REASON

The decision was supported by the following reason:

To demonstrate the Council’s compliance with all legal duties relating to surveillance and to provide clarity to all stakeholders in a single policy document the circumstances under which the Council will use surveillance and how this will be done.