Midsummer is supposed to be a quiet time for news and for life in general. Usually, it doesn’t turn out like that, writes Mark Rowe to introduce the August 2013 print issue of Professional Security magazine.
Not on 7-7. Not at all the music festivals and sports events, that need stewarding (have a look at the case studies on the regular pages 18 to 21). Nor has it seemed that quiet, while putting together this issue, last month. To take one topic that I haven’t much or indeed any room for – the recent publication of Government statistics on commercial crime, crime against businesses. Now most official stats are about crime in the home, burglaries, so this release ought to be important. But I had to doubt what I was reading, as soon as it said that crime against retail and wholesale in the 2000s fell by two-thirds. Can you believe it? Did it happen to you? How then would you explain that the police recorded crimes of shoplifting stayed about the same, about 300,000 offences a year? Could it be that police only devote so much time and effort to shop theft, and if you demand any more, you can forget it? Nor did I think much of the report’s claim of ‘a general trend towards less reporting [to police] of crimes between 2002 and 2012’. And why was that? Because retailers are lazy? Or because from experience they see no point in telling police? (And will it be any better under the new police and crime commissioners? Jim Gannon on page 14 is sceptical.)
No, sadly I cannot take seriously what should have been a vital piece of research. And yet such research is so hard to find, I am always keen to bring it to you. Take the Security Industry Authority’s approved contractor scheme (ACS). When (or, at the rate it’s going, if) the SIA switches to a new regime, of compulsory business licensing, where will that leave the ACS? If everybody is OK’d by the regulator, what will be the benefit of an approval scheme, whether it’s still run by the SIA or some other body. The SIA survey in full is on their website; a digest is on page 29. As ever the one thing you can say for sure is that opinion is divided. Some stand by the ACS as a defence of contract guarding standards against the rogues; some haven’t seen a benefit in years; and not everyone has heard of it yet (and if they haven’t by now, will they ever?!). Some say, why change in the middle of tough times and squeezed margins (squeezed by the biggest firms with the deepest pockets). Others say, this is a once in 15 years chance to get things right. It may be that everybody is right.
What’s also undeniable is the march of technology, as John Jasper showed me last month. His new product may put a lot of noses out of joint because it might do away with other products and services. Maybe you best find out sooner rather than later, on page 54.
