The Cabinet Member Single Member Decision meeting scheduled for Tuesday 27 January 2026 was set to consider revisions to fees and charges for CCTV footage provision and applications for Section 61 consent. The meeting was a virtual, single-member decision taken by Councillor Shantanu Rajawat, Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Strategy, Resources and External Affairs.

In-year Revisions to Fees and Charges for CCTV Footage and Section 61 Consent Applications

The primary item scheduled for discussion was a proposal to revise the existing fees and charges related to the provision of CCTV footage and the processing of Section 61 consent applications. These proposed changes were developed as part of the Transforming our Community Experience (TCE) Programme, aiming to recover the costs incurred by the council in delivering these services.

The report pack indicated that the proposed revisions for CCTV footage requests, specifically those made by solicitors and insurance companies, included the introduction of a sliding scale of charges for searches. These would start at £440 for a search taking up to one hour, £510 for searches between one and six hours, and £550 for searches exceeding six hours. Additionally, the existing charge for supplying CCTV footage was proposed to increase from £100 to £210. These changes were projected to generate up to an additional £107,000 annually, a significant increase from the current approximate £2,000 generated. It was clarified that these changes would not affect requests made by individuals under the Subject Access Request provision, nor those made by internal teams or the police for crime-solving purposes.

For Section 61 consent applications, which are used to control noise and vibration from construction sites under the Control of Pollution Act 1974¹, new fees were proposed. These would also follow a sliding scale based on the size and complexity of the application, starting at £200 for small applications and rising to £400 for medium applications. Pre-application advice would also incur a fee of £120. These new charges were expected to generate up to approximately £8,500 annually. The introduction of these new fees was planned to coincide with the rollout of new, digitised processes for both CCTV footage provision and Section 61 applications in February 2026.

The report pack highlighted that these proposals were informed by industry benchmarking and modelling of current service delivery costs. The rationale behind the proposed graduated fee model was to ensure that fees were proportionate to the work undertaken, preventing overcharging for simpler services. The council's Chief Financial Officer noted that existing charging arrangements did not fully recover the costs of officer time, administration, and overheads, leading to a subsidy from the General Fund. The proposed fees were considered to align with the council's policy principles of fairness, transparency, and cost recovery, and were benchmarked against those of neighbouring authorities such as Brent, Hillingdon, Redbridge, Richmond, and Hammersmith & Fulham for CCTV, and Westminster City Council, City of London, London Borough of Camden, and London Borough of Islington for Section 61 consents.

The report pack also detailed the financial implications, projecting a total additional income of up to £115,000 annually from the proposed changes. It was noted that the implementation costs would be absorbed within existing approvals for the TCE Programme. The report indicated that revenue and activity levels would be closely monitored after implementation, with potential for future reviews of the charges.