Communications

There are three full time equivalent posts responsible for communications activity across the West, East and North Units. This structure has helped to publicise safety camera activity throughout 2023/24. Highlights include:

• The website safetycameras.gov.scot remained a well-used resource across the year, with 140,330 users accessing the site over the course of 2023/24. This was a decrease of 7,425 when viewed against the number of views in 2022/23 (147,755).
• A steady and consistent social media profile. This is evident through:
  • The “X” account having 7,279 followers. This represents a 0.8% increase in followers against the previous (2022/23) year (7,224). 
  • A Facebook page, which was created in late 2017, also grew throughout the period, with 5,777 followers at the end of the reporting period which is which is an increase of 59% of followers in 2022/23 (3,631).
  • In addition, views on YouTube were 747 for 2023/24. This represents an decrease of 2,358 (76%) against the level of views during 2022/23 (3,105).

Figure 1 shows the social media engagement figures for each quarter of 2023/24. The information is also available in the supporting documents.

Key communications based highlighted undertaken across 2023/24 included:

• A9 focus on commercial vehicles - Intelligence driven campaign on the A9 supporting the Road Policing commercial vehicle week lead to 4,355 offences of which 3,098 were commercial.
• Use of Northsound and TayFM travel bulletins.
• A Winter Driving Campaign beginning in early December and running for almost two months, delivering 300,000 impressions which reinforced the message that modern cars have controls for everything except the weather.
• Two text to animation adverts were created from digital audio scripts featuring driving in darkness and the second explaining that speed cameras operate where people have been killed/injured as a result of speeding. Both were shared on social media.
• Ferry advertising was utilised to focus on speed for visitors using both the MV Cormisk (Mallaig to Armadale) and MV Loch Seaforth (Ullapool to Stornoway).A digital App ad targeting van drivers on the A9 focussed on localised enforcement around Inveralmond and Balinluig in response to specific local speed compliance concerns.
• A New Speed Limits Table was used to distribute to Highlands and Islands Road Policing to share with visitors to the NC500 and A9 North.

National Campaign Research

Following the recommendation from 2022/23 to enhance communication, the Unit Communications Officers commissioned research to understand public awareness of the use of safety cameras. This issue emerged from a noted reduction in positive perceptions emerging from the 2022 RITS survey. This was a Qualitative Research focus group exercise which suggested a general lack of understanding of the location of safety cameras and their purpose, it also confirmed long-standing misconceptions that safety cameras were intended to generate revenue from drivers. The outcomes will serve as a baseline against future communication work and campaigns to understand and ensure a positive impact from that future investment where possible.

Change of Branding

One finding from the National Campaign Research was a lack of recognition of the role of Police Scotland within Safety Cameras Scotland. A change of name was proposed to improve that alignment and public recognition with “Safety Cameras Scotland” now referred to as “Police Scotland Safety Cameras”.

Communicating the role of safety cameras and educating the public should continue to feature to ensure messaging on the impact of speed on collisions is resonating with the public. New and innovative approaches to communicate with road users should continue to feature and other approaches identified where possible to continue the process of positive engagement.

Local Engagement

A customer satisfaction survey was circulated to all road authorities in Scotland to allow them to feedback on local engagement. This is the ninth survey undertaken since the introduction of the three-Unit structure in 2015. To try to improve feedback, the survey was circulated digitally using an online survey platform. The findings of all surveys are summarised below.

Ten of thirty three road authorities responded to the survey. The responses were as follows. The data in these figures are available in the accompanying supporting documents.

Figure 2 shows that for all years 2017/18 to 2023/24, the majority of respondents were satisfied with their engagement with Safety Camera Units.

Figure 3 shows that for all years 2017/18 to 2023/24, the majority of respondents were satisfied with Safety Camera enforcement in their area.

Figure 4 shows that for all years 2017/18 to 2023/24, the majority of respondents were satisfied with the frequency of engagement with Safety Camera Units.

Figure 5 shows that for years 2021/22 to 2022/23 the majority of respondents considered the 2019 revisions to the Safety Camera Handbook to be beneficial to their area. However the proportion was lower for 2019/20 (50%) and 2023-24 (40%).

Figure 6 shows the number of responses received from 2017/18 to 2023-24, showing that there has been an overall decrease from 23 in 2017/18 to 10 in 2023-24.

These outcomes suggest a desire for greater engagement with road authorities with direct feedback suggesting there may be a lack of understanding of how site selection works. This could be better communicated with road authorities. In addition, there was a suggestion that greater access to performance data might be helpful for wider public consumption. 

Improving engagement with road authorities is a priority for the three Units and efforts should be made to identify opportunities and local forums where the Units can be both more visible and engage directly with authorities, particularly around site selection. This should also be fed into website design plans.