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From 1st April 2007 the Department for Transport (DfT) has given
a financial lump sum to both Kent County Council (KCC) and Medway
Council. This money is for road safety work. Both KCC and Medway
Council have chosen to use this new money to continue the good
work of the Safety Camera Partnership. Thus the Police costs
(staff and enforcement equipment) and those of Her Majesty's
Courts Service, are being paid from the new grant.
Fines collected from Fixed Penalties issued are paid directly
to the Government, as they always have been. The amount of grant
given to KCC and Medway Council is in no way related to the
number of tickets that we issue. The previous 'Cost Recovery'
system (explained below) ceased to apply from the end of March
2007 and the 'Rules and Guidance' that determined the size of
the budgets available under that mechanism have also ceased
to apply.
The Government's grant monies can also be used for other road
safety activities alongside the road safety budgets that the
local authorities already have.
Before the Kent & Medway
Safety Camera Partnership was formed in July 2002, each Partner
organisation had to pay for safety cameras and staff from its
own budgets. As a result, Kent Police, for example, had to provide
staff and camera films and Kent County Council and Medway Council
paid for the erection of the cameras and their maintenance.
This money came from taxes and your 'rates'. Both Councils and
the Police have many priorities and providing funding for safety
cameras was always a problem when the public were making other
demands on the organisations. At the same time the money received
from fines went straight to the Government.
The Councils and Kent Police therefore asked
if some of that fine money might be returned to subsidise the
costs of the cameras and staff.
The system that was set up was called 'Cost
Recovery' and it meant that actual costs for running cameras
and processing offences were paid for by the Government. In
turn the Government used the money that it is received in fines.
The Kent & Medway Safety Camera Partnership
does not keep the fines money and all fines are paid to the
Government (the Department of Constitutional Affairs).
As drivers increasingly obey the speed limits
the number of offences we detect will decrease. The staff needed
to process the offences therefore can decrease and our costs
will decrease. As a result there is no reason for us to try
and 'catch' drivers out since this will not provide us with
any 'profit'.
The cost recovery system meant that if you don't drive, or you
don't speed, then you were not paying for the cameras, the films
nor the processing of offences. The Police staff were returned
to other Policing duties as new staff have been provided which
are dedicated to the safety cameras and are paid for from Government
and not from your taxes.
Year-end Audit
At the end of each financial year, the Partnership
was required to prepare accounts that are summarised on a grant
claim showing total spend and Conditional Offer of Fixed Penalty
Notices (CoFPN) receipts received in the year. This claim was
subject to independent audit.
The audit certificate
was submitted to the auditor. The Department for Transport (DfT)
reconciled the audited account to the payments that were released,
and to the receipts that were received from the Department for
Constitutional Affairs (DCA) in respect of each partnership
- the maximum that a partnership can receive for payments relating
to that year is the actual value of the CoFPN receipts.
To view copies of the audit certificates
for 2002-03 to 2006-07, in PDF format please click on the following
links.
Audit
certificate 2002-03
Audit
certificate 2003-04
Audit certificate
2004-05
Audit certificate 2005-06
Audit certificate
2006-07
Kent County Council, as lead
local authority in the Partnership, has a responsibility to
maintain accounts of income and expenditure for the Partnership,
following usual local authority accounting practice. Chris Rogers,
the Partnership's Project Manager, is responsible for monitoring
the budget and ensuring that the partnership is on target against
operational case forecasts.
Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs)
To view the number of FPNs issued per district
since the Partnership was formed in July 2002, click on the
following link.
Fixed
Penalties Issued by District
(Updated February 2008)
To view the number of Fixed Penalties issued
by safety cameras on a month-by-month basis, and the number
of FPNs paid, click on the following link.
FPN Paid
with Values April 2009
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