ELDERLEY residents living in sheltered housing are unwittingly paying for CCTV coverage in a North-East town centre, it has emerged.

Sheltered housing residents and other vulnerable householders in the Chester-le-Street district pay for the Careline Service, which monitors safety alarms in their homes.

But the Audit Commission says staff monitoring the alarms are also responsible for monitoring CCTV in the town centre.

This arrangement results in vulnerable residents footing the bill for a vast portion of the costs involved in the town centre surveillance system, the commission claims.

It has criticised the arrangement as part of its role in monitoring progress made by Chester-le-Street District Council's housing department since a damming report last year.

Commission inspectors recently put a draft report before the council in which it again criticises the council as running a 'poor' service.

A final report is expected to be made public at the end of September, after inspectors receive the council's response.

In the report, leaked to The Northern Echo, the commission states: "In our view this is an unfair practice, as vulnerable residents of the district who are amongst the most economically disadvantaged are effectively paying for a service that all residents, including council tax payers, benefit from."

They add: "Whilst these are separate services and it is reasonable to expect separate charges to be levied for them, some tenants are in effect paying for the same service twice, through their Careline charges and then through council tax payments."

The report also criticises the housing department for failing to spend a quarter of its budget at a time when it has delayed some repairs, citing a lack of funds. Inspectors stated that during 2001/02 the department still had £134,000 to spend.

The report said the counci had already proposed steps to address the accounting issue, but last night the authority was not in a position to comment before the final report is published.

A spokesman for the council said: "The Audit Commission has advised us not to comment publicly because the report is still in draft and they advised us to wait until the final report is published."