The Director of Law, HR and Asset Management reported that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (“RIPA”) governed how public bodies used surveillance methods and that Wirral Council, like other local authorities was entitled to use directed surveillance where doing so was in the public interest for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or preventing disorder. The Office of the Surveillance Commissioner (“OSC”) was responsible for overseeing the operation of RIPA and the Council had to account to the OSC on an annual basis on its use of RIPA. The Council had been the subject of 2 inspections by the OSC in July 2003 and July 2007 and the use of RIPA was also the subject of a recent review by the Internal Audit Section. He reported that one of the recommendations of the review was that the Council’s Policy and Procedures on the use of RIPA be updated. The Policy was most recently reviewed in 2004.

He commented that unfortunately, there had been a large degree of misreporting on the subject of surveillance and he presented a Home Office document on some of the misconceptions. The Council had used directed surveillance to support its enforcement activity since the passing of RIPA and in the year 2007/2008 the Council granted 45 authorisations. Those related to cases investigated by the Wirral Anti-social Behaviour Team (36) and the Trading Standards team (9) and the use of the powers had assisted in legal action to tackle rogue traders and to obtain court orders to tackle anti-social behaviour.

The Director presented a copy of the latest OSC inspection report and he outlined the actions taken by the Council in response to recommendations contained within it. He presented also a revised policy and procedure on the use of powers under RIPA, which had been considered by the Chief Officers Management Team and would also be presented to the next meeting of the Cabinet. He reported also that the Council would be subject to a further OSC inspection this year, which would test the adequacy of the arrangements that were in place.

In response to comments from members, the Director reported that authorising officers had to be satisfied that the use of covert surveillance was as a last resort. All responsible/authorised officers of the Council involved in such activity were required to be trained at least every two years and risk assessments would always be undertaken.

Resolved –

(1) That the Policy and Procedure on the Use of Powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act be endorsed.

(2) That regular update reports be presented to future meetings of the Committee, setting out the reasons for the use of directed surveillance under RIPA, and to include details of the outcome of such operations.