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The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), one of the oldest-ever forces, is championing the use surveillance camera technology. Last year 2,512 wanted people – including suspected murderers– were successfully identified by MPS thanks to the use of CCTV. A statement from the force said: “We’ve had great success with CCTV. These are people who often would have fled the scene and potentially ‘got away with it’ had it not been for CCTV. There’s no doubt that CCTV continues to help us make London a safer place.” Tensor and our partners CCTV Surveillance Ltd supply and maintain digital CCTV systems that are integrated to work with a standard PC monitor. This has been achieved through the development of sophisticated CCTV software. The software allows individual users to set their own criteria for viewing selected footage from particular CCTV cameras within the network. Password and security features limit the viewing of certain cameras to specific groups of people, enabling you to securely manage who is able to see particular areas of activity.

An MP has questioned why a company that is putting 900 Welsh workers out of a job – by shifting production to Hungary – is now hoping to secure millions in public subsidy to open a new plant in England. Vale of Glamorgan Labour Assembly Member Jane Hutt said of Bosch’s plan to shut down its plant in the Vale of Glamorgan and bid for a new technology site at Worcester: “This news will come as a real body blow to those workers who have lost their jobs in the South Wales plant.” Moving sites is made smoother with a Tensor Time & Attendance system based on smart card technology, which allows your employees to clock in and out extremely quickly. This information can be used to ensure that European working time regulations are not breached and can be exported in many forms to allow integration with existing payroll software. Your employees’ time and attendance data is gathered from the clocking machines and available in real time. Our WinTA network is able to work over national and international boundaries.  

As part of a cost-cutting exercise Cornwall Council is looking into the future of around 220 public toilets in the county. The body wants a complete overview of the service included in a wider programme of budget savings, so it is asking local authorities to look at how £1m could be saved in efficiencies over the next four years. Among the options being considered include delegating local public convenience management to parish councils or reducing opening times. The council said that every location can be judged on its own merits. Tensor toilet turnstiles incorporate a coin box set-up so that organisations or local authorities can continue to offer public toilet facilities. Generous revenues can be generated from the turnstiles for going towards their maintenance. Half height toilet turnstiles provide an unobtrusive method of controlling access to your toilet facilities. Styled in a tripod design, both single and double half height turnstiles are available, allowing you to double your throughput while keeping the amount of space used by the turnstile to a minimum.  

An innovative technical device is keeping members of the public aware of car crime issues in their neighbourhood. Solar-powered talking signs are reminding motorists about leaving no valuables on display so that items are not stolen from vehicles. Police in Greater London will also be putting up ordinary signs alerting about car crime. A Southall Police statement said: "Reducing thefts from vehicles is a priority for us. A lot of car crime is random, and cars are broken into to steal anything on show." Tensor’s sophisticated visitor and access control systems can include automatic barriers to help secure your car parking facilities and control vehicle access. At this point you are able to allow or deny access to any person visiting your site. Barriers can be controlled remotely, from your reception area, or locally, from a guard post next to the barrier. As well as an effective method of security, the barriers can monitor the number of vehicles travelling through any given access point. All automatic car park barriers are supplied complete and are ready to accept power and data connections.  

Huge cuts to Ealing Council's budget are worse than initially indicated, which will bring jobs and frontline services under threat. The authority must save an extra two per cent after receiving its grant allocation from central funds, making a total of £66 million to be cut over three years. The council said that a list of community and volunteer groups which will be affected will be sent to the council cabinet in the spring. Its leader Julian Bell said: “It's very disheartening when we have to make that level of cuts.” Tensor’s WinTA Lite is the latest in our proven range of Windows™ based time and attendance products, from simple collection of employees' clocking data, through to job costing and extensive labour hours analysis. Software reports show jobs that are over budget or those approaching their budget limit, useful if your company is finding finances are tight. This information can also be exported to spreadsheets. The Export to Payroll function links to Sage, Pegasus, Centrefile, Unipay, Moorepay, and other popular payroll systems.  

A technology group has been strongly criticised by a local government consultant for relocating to a cheaper labour market in Eastern Europe, while seeking to fund a new plant in the UK. Former Bridgend Council leader Jeff Jones said the decision by Bosch to put its 400,000 sq ft Miskin plant on the market in Wales for what sources said was £10m was “bonkers.” He added: “It really is absurd that they close a factory down in one part of the UK and then try to get taxpayers’ money in another part of the UK.” Personnel and clocking systems from Tensor offer all-in-one Time and Attendance recording facilities with job booking and job costing. Customised reports allow you to get the in time and attendance information you need to make on the spot personnel decisions. Our packages are tailored to the size of your business. For example, WinTA Start holds up to 50 employees’ details including a year-to-view absence planner. This shows absences for individuals or departments, making it simple to plan training and holiday dates.

David Cameron defended himself during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons when Labour Rhondda MP Chris Bryant accused him of breaking an election promise to protect frontline services. Bryant revealed the cuts affecting South Wales Police, but the Prime Minister said of the force’s loss of 600 staff: “Next year they have to find a 5% cut that will take them back – not to some figure of the 1980s – [but] to the spending they had in 2007-08.” A Tensor Access System gives your company full control over who is allowed access through any controlled point at any time of any day. If you want the sophistication and speed of smart card control, but do not wish to use a PC, then the T2002 is for you. It is simple to programme and operate, easy to maintain, and has the capability of connecting with up to two Tensor T149x scanners to create a "stand alone" two-door system. The T2002 is ideal for remote barriers or small sites, and is perfect for a low profile security application.  

An electrical giant will close its customer service centre in North Lanarkshire with the loss of 40 jobs. Employees of Comet who work in the service operations section have already been consulted. The company plans to centralise the posts at two distribution sites in Harlow and Skelmersdale further south in England. The firm's home delivery operation at the site in Scotland is not affected by the job losses. Comet said the move will enable them “to provide an improved and faster repair service for customers.” An all-in-one Time and Attendance system with job booking, costing and comprehensive user-definable working patterns, rosters and shifts is available from Tensor. Individual and group absence planners are of the many features of our WinTA software. Users can print reports created by themselves on any standard reports using a range of parameters, such as different dates, departments, groups or employees. This makes available information that would normally take hours or even days to produce with older manual card based systems or older DOS based computers.

Professor Stephen Soumerai, part of a research team looking into doctors’ pay, said of a bonus scheme introduced in 2004: "The programme's lack of effect may be explained in part by performance targets that were set too close to existing practice." It was found the system had no real impact on the treatment of high blood pressure. The researchers did not look at other parts of the bonus system, but their findings echoed concerns about whether the targets were ambitious enough as doctors hit them regularly. Tensor’s WinTA time and attendance systems provide the ultimate payroll solution as they enable the creation of a wide range of daily working patterns. The software exports to all popular payroll systems and can deal with fixed or flexitime rules, night shifts, overtime and bonus payments. Bands are selected based on the time and the number of hours worked. Employees use their contactless smart cards to book jobs at the clocking stations, which are also used to register attendance by clocking in and out.  

The Managing Director of an expanding electronics firm explained why it is opening a new online sales and distribution centre, thus creating up to 60 jobs. Clive Murphy said the availability of the new building meant his firm Trojan was able to meet growing demand. The company, which specialises in the repair, refurbishment and recycling of consumer electronics products, is based in Gorseinon, Wales, and will also use the new depot in Swansea. Tensor can help your business grow, whether you need updating your personnel and clocking system or are moving sites. Our entry-level time and attendance system WinTA Lite operates a single time clock and can record employee details for up to 250 people. Job booking, job costing and labour hours analysis is included in the network, as are individual and group absence planners. Thanks to its modular design this particular time and attendance solution can also link to your Tensor access control application, where it is able to efficiently share employee data. For larger sites our WinTA Enterprise system fits the bill.  

Birmingham City Council is understood to be earmarking its museum and art gallery, above, for job cuts as it needs to save £75 million. Widely regarded as Britain's largest local authority, it plans to shed up 2,000 jobs, freeze staff pay and reduce services in this financial round, which is held to be a taste of cuts to come in council budgets nationwide. Council leader, Mike Whitby, said: "All the forecasts indicate the next few years will be tough. Quite simply we have to do more for less." A complete system for calculating wages, bonuses, pay and shifts is WinTA Enterprise, which is Tensor’s flagship Windows™ based time and attendance product for businesses. It provides total control over working rules, job costing and system security. The T32xx Clocking Station works independently of the PC, if the PC is switched off or fails. It has digital outputs to control door locks, fire alarms, wall clocks, and much more. Automatic fault reporting via the Internet is another one of its myriad features.