I do not agree you need legal advice to effectively scrutinise this report and comment on its failings.

That wasn’t my point. My point was that I would need legal advice in order to understand your email. Councillors aren’t expected to read and interpret statutes for themselves any more than they are expected to empty bins for themselves - the council employs professional staff to carry out these functions. In particular, with RIPA as with any other statute the interpretation that counts is not yours, and not mine, but that of the courts. So where there is a difference of interpretation what matters is a proper review of the case law, which I am not in a position to do and which the council’s lawyer almost certainly can’t get done in a single day.

It really would be helpful if you could give more notice of complex questions like this.

My experience, over the years, of reading legislation for myself and trying to work out what it means is that I rarely get it right (where “right” means “what a court would decide”), due no doubt to lack of legal training. So to properly understand the points you are making I would have to take legal advice, which is simply not possible between now and the meeting on Monday - lawyers don’t work weekends, and they don’t work fast enough to do all the work on Monday.

I replied noting that I had given one of his colleagues about four moths of advance notice and opportunity to consider the points I have raised.

I also let him know that I did not agree him that he needed legal advice to effectively scrutinise this report and comment on its failings. Suggesting a number of simple observations he could make and actions he could take I wrote:

Do you agree that the use of CCTV to monitor independent punters on Jesus Green was at the very least a deployment which ought to have been discussed in this review, even if the final decision was that it did not need RIPA authorisation? If so, invite the council leader to note this omission.

Do you agree that it is a crazy situation to have different codes of practice / guidelines for the different departments of the council deploying CCTV. If the Jesus Green deployment had been using RCCTV it would have certainly required RIPA authorisation according to the council’s own guidelines. If so, try and persuade the leader to recommend consistency across the council.

Perhaps an RCCTV deployment had been refused, and that’s why another department of the council decided to drill holes in the bowling pavilion and poke cameras through them? We don’t know because while the report states that records of authorisation refusals are made, it does not list them. You could invite the leader to note this omission.

You have received your constituents opinions on CCTV via many channels, you could represent those views by commenting on if you think the council should have a system for approving the monitoring of individuals using non-covert cameras, including the public CCTV system, irrespective of if a particular individual who happens to be a layer determines that system of authorisation is required by RIPA.

Total news that CCTV was used for this purpose/will get clear answer on
Monday

He also let me know that the :

Head of Legal has drafted an initial set of wording for me to consider as Labour’s amendment

Presumably that is Cambridge City Council’s Head of Legal Services. The same person who conducted the review is drafting the Labour amendment to their own review. That strikes me as odd, but I understand council officers are supposed to act impartially and I have no reason to expect them to do otherwise.

It is good to see the Labour group preparing to comment on the report, and perhaps introduce recommendations as part of their ammendment.

It is only as a result of the Labour group referring this report for scrutiny that we have the opportunity to debate it in public on Monday.

I am writing to you as you are the named officer contact for the Strategy & Resources Scrutiny Committee to be held at 17.00 on Monday the 1st of September.

I would like to speak as a member of the public at the meeting in relation to item 8 on the agenda (Review of the Council’s use of powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act).
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