This week’s non-job, one of the 490 on offer this week, is another cheeky revenue raiser in local government. From Ealing Council, the non-job of the week will infuriate every motorist and taxpayer in the West London borough:
“CCTV Enforcement Manager
£35,982 - £37,725 pa inclusive
You'll be responsible for providing leadership to our large CCTV team, which undertake enforcement of parking, traffic and bus lane contraventions - using both a control room facility and mobile enforcement units.
We'll be looking at you to have a track record of success in the field of managing enforcement services and you'll be dynamic in how you motivate staff and provide innovative performance planning.
Ealing council values the diversity of its community and aims to have a workforce that reflects this. We therefore encourage applications from all sections of the community.”
Maybe they should have renamed this job – in the finest local government doublespeak – as the “revenue safeguarding officer” position. For that is what this job is about. Councils have ruthlessly set about installing CCTV in every street and corner to monitor what we do. Is it to catch criminals or, given the emphasis on traffic ‘violations’ in the ad, is it the council’s intention to find you driving in a bus lane, fine you and pocket the rewards? Given the database state we live in nowadays and the lengths councils go to increase revenue through charges and stealth taxes (ahem), it’s definitely the latter.
Knowing now that the authorities use these surveillance systems to hit taxpayers rather than allocate resources to catch serious criminals, how can anyone be for the database state when the means used to safeguard council revenue?