In yet another example of shortcutting at the expense of taxpayers, a local news source in Kent revealed this month that Kent police have massively overpaid for a set of 1,600 body-worn video cameras, used by their officers to record their day-to-day activities on the beat.
Each unit, a five megapixel full HD lightweight camera, came in at an astonishing £550. The investigation found that while the force forked out £880,000, if they had shopped around for the devices they could have saved £776,000. Indeed a quick search online revealed that a similar camera, with double the amount of memory and a higher resolution image, came in at a budget-friendly £65.
Given that Kent Police have committed themselves to saving £61 million over the next four years, and cuts have already led to support staff redundancies at Canterbury police station, it is no wonder that local people are questioning the purchase. Spending an extra £776,000 of taxpayers’ money on a lower-spec product is simply not good enough.