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Dept for Transport

Answer

Mr. Greg Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many persons were employed by safety camera partnerships in England and Wales at the latest date for which figures are available; and how many were employed by safety camera partnerships at their inception. [196957] Mr. Jamieson: [holding answer 10 November 2004]: Safety camera partnerships comprise area police authorities, local highway authorities and magistrates court authorities. Some staff only spend part of their time with the partnership and the rest on duties with their parent authorities--hence the figures are expressed in terms of `full time equivalents'. The Safety Camera Programme began in 2000, involving seven local partnerships in England and Wales, which had a total of 210 full-time equivalent posts at the end of the programme's trial year 2000-01. There are now 35 partnerships in England and Wales, covering the whole of Wales and virtually all of England, with 1,692 full-time equivalent posts, on the latest available data. Of these 1,692 full time equivalent posts: 1,160 are employed by police authorities, dealing with detecting offences, processing fixed penalty tickets and dealing with inquiries; 312 are employed by magistrates court authorities, dealing with collecting payments, dealing with inquiries and driving licence issues; 91 are employed by local authorities, dealing with communications, establishing and monitoring sites including signing issues; 129 are employed by either police or local authorities, dealing with running the partnerships and other project management issues. The independent review of the first three years of the programme's operation, 2000-02 to 2002-03, which the Government published on 15 June showed that cameras were saving over 100 road deaths and over 750 serious injuries a year for the 24 partnerships then in operation--a 40 per cent. reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured at camera sites over and above the general downward trend in UK road casualties, with a financial benefit to society of over four times the resource cost of the programme including staff. The annual number of avoided deaths and injuries will now be considerably more, with 35 partnerships now in operation. We have commissioned an update of the independent review of the programme's operation. This will be published in the spring. The partnerships will shortly submit their proposals for 2005-06 including staffing numbers, and the Department will scrutinise these in detail, to ensure that the programme is delivering its valuable benefits in reduced road deaths and casualties as efficiently as possible.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

426 c1855-6W;426 c1859-60W; 196957

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Staff Cameras Roads Safety Safety measures Speed limits

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk