Councils are not snooping for snooping's sake: they are seeking to detect illegal activity, say the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (Lacors). They acknowledge there may have been instances of over-zealous use of their investigatory powers by some councils, but 99% of the time, they say, these investigations lead to some form of prosecution or action.
What's more, councils have always undertaken such investigations; the extension of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act legislation to local authorities simply made the processes more transparent. And with transparency comes publicity, often unwelcome.
"Councils sometimes fail to understand is why this should be such a touchy issue," Lacors says. It is working with the Home Office on a set of guidelines that will provide advice on these fraught areas.
In his annual report, published in July, Sir Christopher Rose, the chief surveillance commissioner, said that local authorities use covert surveillance only as a last resort, but granted the need for a public debate. "It is not acceptable," he wrote, "to judge that because directed surveillance is being conducted from a public place, this automatically renders the activity overt or to assert that an activity is proportionate because it is the only way to further an investigation...I encourage any debate which assists in educating the public and which enables authorising officers to judge proportionality better."
Obstructions
Rose noted the rising number of Freedom of Information requests about surveillance, to which, he said, local authorities had responded "inconsistently". Councils not giving out information readily may be deemed obstructive.
Local authorities are struggling to find a balance between enforcement and intrusion. It's a matter of efficiency rather than political philosophy, according to Chris Leslie, director of the New Local Government Network, particularly in collecting data.
"There are better ways to use the data we all share as a society and feel is reasonable," says Leslie. The NLGN recently published a pamphlet proposing the abolition of the 10-year national census. "Never mind intrusion, what we should be asking is whether it's cost-effective continually to be asking people to resupply the same data."
Public attitudes are mixed: in some areas, cameras are welcomed for their calming influence. No one has yet protested about the use of CCTV by the Environment Agency to monitor spots where rivers might flood.
What is curious is how little local authorities seem able to convey the benefits of their actions. Indeed, many seem almost wilfully oblivious to the effect of their actions, however well-meaning, on the public and, more pertinently, how they could be interpreted by a hostile press.
Alarmist stories
The media does have a lot to answer for. As Rose notes, FOI requests about surveillance are a rich seam for journalists. They have led to alarmist stories about local councils running surveillance operations.
There's also confusion about the purposes of data collection and investigation. The London borough of Islington sifted through rubbish from 1,000 homes to see what people were throwing away and help improve recycling. That got short shrift in the press.
But when people understand that data is being used for the greater good - as when health statistics are collected anonymously - they tend to be far more tolerant.
So is this yet another area where the public sector has failed to get over its message?
