This is a catch up posting and so is quite long.
A CCTV camera appeared in Ben Jonson House during the week leading up to the 1st June. It was installed next to the L02 lift doors by stairway 64. When asked, our house officer said they knew nothing at all of this.
The camera looks like this:
I wrote to the BEO asking them to halt work on this until they had completed consultation with residents. The BEO confirmed that the work had been halted.
On 6th June 2013 I raised a complaint to the BEO that there had not been any consultation (or even notice!) that the camera had been installed. Here is the complaint:
Thank
you for this response. I look forward to discussing this with you
during your residents consultation. I know many other people have an
interest and would also welcome the opportunity to contribute their
thoughts.
I am certain that
there were the best of intentions, but this has to be taken against the
fact that residents have asked time and again to be at least notified
before works are done which affect their home and
are repeatedly let down. Even our house officer knew nothing of this,
which must say something about internal communications within the BEO
too.
In the spirit of working with the BEO to improve processes and transparency I would like to make an official complaint about this instance. Please take this email message as a complaint.
Could you please detail what parties were involved and/or consulted and when in the lead up to the decision to install camera(s)
in Ben Jonson House. I don't expect you to provide detailed
information on individuals.
The number of residents and whether they live in Ben Jonson House or
not, plus the names of any external entities would be a good start.
Could you please also tell me what the consultation process should have been?
I'd like to emphasise here that I'm raising this 'complaint'
in order to help improve the processes and avoid residents being
surprised by works and changes in and around their homes. The BEO do a
smashing
job on the whole and my hope is that the complaints process will bring some focus to the issue of communication and help make things even better.
On the 14th June the BEO responded:
Thank you for your email of 6 June. I can confirm this has been treated as a complaint.
First, to answer your questions in order;
· Parties involved in the installation of the CCTV were:- Barry Ashton – Car Park and Security Manager, our contractors and the commercial tenant who paid for the installation.
· Who we should have consulted with:- Ben Jonson House Group in the first instance followed by all residents via noticeboards and BEO email broadcast.
As Barry Ashton has explained this installation was done with the best of intentions ie. to improve the security of Ben Jonson residents. However this should not have been carried out without first consulting with the residents of your block. The CCTV has been disconnected and will remain so until the BEO has gone back and carried out this step. If need be, following that consultation, the CCTV will be removed.
Mr Badger, the BEO is working hard to improve its communication processes with residents all the time, and I do hope that over recent years you’ve seen evidence of this. This incident is not indicative of our normal standards and we fully accept that we got it wrong this time. Please accept our apologies and I hope you feel that we are working hard to put things right in this instance.
This complaint has been dealt with at stage one of the City of London Complaints Procedure, a link to which is attached. If you do not consider that your complaint has been dealt with satisfactorily, you can escalate it to stage 2 of the procedure by writing to Eddie Stevens, Housing Services Director, setting out why you are unhappy with the investigation and/or outcome.
http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-our-website/Documents/complaint_form.pdf
Regards
Towards the end of June I heard that there were additional cameras installed within the Ben Jonson / Breton car park. Yet another surprise.
On 8th July the BEO told us how they planned to proceed:
Following a discussion with my colleagues, we feel the best way to
proceed with a consultation with Ben Jonson residents is as follows:-
Online survey to gauge opinion. This is the same format as the recent
estate wide residents’ survey which had an excellent response rate. This
will be advertised via Barbican email broadcast and posters on the
noticeboards within Ben Jonson. As with other surveys the posters will
make clear a paper copy is available from the House Officer if needed.
The invite to participate in the survey will only go to Ben Jonson
residents and on Ben Jonson noticeboards. We will give 2 weeks for
responses The wording will read:-
Dear Ben Jonson Resident.
As you may be aware a commercial contract has rented some bays within
Breton Car Park. This is a contract that has been on the estate (in
Speed Car Park) without incident, for over 4 years.
The drivers have access to the car park via staircase 64 street level. Because of this the BEO installed a camera at the expense of the commercial tenant. Concern was raised by some residents about the installation of a camera and the lack of consultation about this. The camera has subsequently been made inoperative. It is intended that the camera will feed to Breton car park box.
• Would you like to see the camera at Staircase 64, street level be put into operation or removed?
o Operative
o Removed
• Do you have any comments?
Following this, the survey results will be communicated to your House
Group committee and then via the noticeboards and BEO email broadcast to
Ben Jonson House residents. We are continually reviewing our
consultation/communication processes to develop a model for different
projects/works on the Barbican Estate - as well as this the City is also
developing a consultation framework for schemes in and around the
Estate being carried out by other Departments following the Barbican
Highwalks seating/planting projects on Ben Jonson Highwalk and St Giles
Terrace (this was mentioned at the recent City residents meetings by the
Town Clerk) .
Mr Badger, the BEO is working very hard to improve its communication
with residents. The website is now regularly updated by BEO staff, we
ensure that residents are sent a link when new committee papers are
posted, following the RCC the BEO produces a “you said we did” update,
the Q&A sessions that have worked well this past year for the Beech
Gardens project are now being used on other projects and these are
posted on our website as well.
Then the BEO then sent out a notice dated 9th July asking for feedback from residents using survey monkey as explained above.
Here is the notice they posted.
I asked how all residents and long leaseholders could respond when may people either don't use computers or don't currently live in the building. The BEO responded:
In addition to the email broadcast, the survey has been sent out to all
external addresses for those long lease holders and the attached letter
was placed onto the notice boards for any other residents whom may not
have access to a computer.
... which brings us up to date.
The next thing I'm expecting is a discussion about the results of the survey.
