Catch me if you can! Citizen Speed Watchers helping the police in South Somerset

Costs and Savings

Volunteer inputs: From 1st January 2009 - 1st January 2010 there was a total of 1510 community street watch sessions. With an average of 3 volunteers per one-hour session, this makes a total of 4,530 hours. As each session generates a report which takes about an additional hour (prepared by the volunteers), this gives a conservative estimate for the year of around 6040 person hours of input.

In addition, there are various meetings, training sessions, etc. Allowing for four meetings a year, with an average of 20 attendees for 2 hours, this gives an extra 160 person hours. Training takes about an hour, and 150 volunteers have been trained last year, making another 150 hours. This give a total of at least 6350 person hours during the year.

Staffing: South Somerset District Council, the local authority, provides direct administrative support of 0.8 full-time equivalent staff, plus management support of 0.2 full-time equivalent staff.

Other costs - SSDC contribute some office facilities but it has no other direct costs from the activity.

The community street watch steering group which has been set up has been successful in bidding and receiving funds from various sources of approximately £30,000.

Rina Singh provided Governance International with this case study on 6th April 2010.