Decision - Annual Surveillance Report 2024

Brighton and Hove Audit, Standards & General Purposes Committee Decided 28 Jan 2025 for determination GET /api/coverage

Decision maker

Audit, Standards & General Purposes Committee

Report author

Jim Whitelegg

Published

29 Jan 2025

Reference

7378

As published

the council's own words, unedited

RESOLVED – That the Audit, Standards and General Purposes Commitee: 1) Approves the continued use of covert surveillance as an enforcement tool to prevent and detect crime and disorder investigated by its officers, providing the activity is in line with the Council's Policy and Guidance and the necessity and proportionality rules are stringently applied. 2) Notes the surveillance activity undertaken by the authority since the report to Committee in January 2024 as set out in paragraph 3.3 in the report. 3) Approves the continued use of the Policy and Guidance document as set out in Appendix 1 in its updated form.

Parsed from the document

gpt-5.6-luna-2026-07-09 · 1904/629 tokens · 5788ms · parsed 9 Sep 2026 15:38

Everything below was read out of a PDF by a model It is useful and it is not authoritative. The document it came from is linked in the rail, and where the two disagree the document is right.

The report reviews Brighton & Hove City Council’s use of covert surveillance powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 since January 2024. It recommends continuing to use covert surveillance where necessary and proportionate, and approving the updated Policy and Guidance document.

Outcome

approved

Recommendation

Approve the continued use of covert surveillance as an enforcement tool where it complies with the Council’s Policy and Guidance and necessity and proportionality requirements; note the two surveillance authorisations undertaken since January 2024; and approve the updated Policy and Guidance document in Appendix 1.

Financial impact

There are no financial implications arising from this report; any covert surveillance undertaken must be met from within current budget resources.

Ward affected

city-wide

Decision maker

Audit & Standards Committee

Date in document

28 Jan 2025

Stakeholders named

parsed

Brighton & Hove City Councillocal residents and members of the publicpeople subject to covert surveillanceCouncil enforcement officersMagistrates

Next steps

parsed

Continue using covert surveillance where necessary, proportionate and compliant with the Council’s Policy and Guidance.
Apply the updated Policy and Guidance document.
Continue the annual review of the authority’s use of RIPA powers and policy.

Precedents

not built

"Decided elsewhere" is not built Finding the same decision in other councils needs semantic matching over decision text, which is part of the search rewrite. Until then, the council's own decisions list is the way through.