http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... peed29.xml
Speed camera fines used to buy plasma TVs and T-shirts
By David Harrison, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:30pm BST 28/10/2006
Speed camera operators are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds from fines on refurbishing premises and buying plasma television screens and staff T-shirts, new figures reveal.
The "safety camera partnerships", formed by police and local authorities, now spend £95 million running their nationwide network of 4,650 cameras.
Many of their costs are unrelated to road safety, and critics say they have become "fully fledged quangos", wasting huge sums of money and adding to widespread suspicions that speed cameras are merely "revenue-raisers".
The figures for 2005-6, contained in a written parliamentary answer, show that Avon, Somerset and Gloucestershire safety camera partnership spent £326,400 on publicity, £81,700 on accommodation, and just under £500,000 on administration.
Hampshire & Isle of Wight spent £86,524 on publicity and appointed a public relations officer, while Cheshire spent £50,000 on refurbishment. Warwickshire spent more than £500,000 on processing costs, £105,450 on management and administration, and £116,693 on communications. Essex ran up an £8,855 bill for photocopying, spent £9,052 on smartboards and £7,495 on a plasma screen and miscellaneous software. Derbyshire budgeted £15,000 for "promotional items" and £250 for staff T-shirts.
The figures also show huge differences in average running costs and profits of cameras in each area. In Hertfordshire, a camera costs £73,167 to maintain and makes a profit of £113,334, while in Lancashire the equivalent figures are £8,972 and £12,615.
Last night, Chris Grayling, the shadow transport secretary, who tabled the questions, accused the partnerships of spending vast sums of money on "expanding their own empires while doing nothing about real road safety problems such as uninsured drivers and people driving with no licence".
"Motorists and the general public have a right to ask why do the partnerships need publicity officers, plasma screens and T-shirts?" he said.
The RAC Foundation called on the Government to set up a watchdog body to monitor how the income was being spent.
Sheila Rainger, the foundation's campaigns manager, said the profits could be spent on "genuine road safety projects" such as educating young drivers.
"We are not anti-speed cameras," Miss Rainger said. "They can do a good job in the right place. But they are in danger of becoming the first and last resort when recent surveys have shown that the most important factor in road accidents is not speed but not paying attention."
The partnerships, formed in the early 1990s, initially did not have to plough profits back into road safety, and surpluses could be used for other council or police projects, prompting complaints that cameras were used simply to make money.
Earlier this year, the partnerships were ordered to use profits for safety projects, but they have continued to spend money on the same things, claiming that they constitute "running costs".
The Government has presided over the introduction of about 7,000 cameras which caught nearly two million motorists last year, raising £120 million in fines. Traffic police have been cut by 11 per cent in the same period.
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