What the UK official counter terror police Nactso (that online goes under Protect UK) have announced for the qualifications for practitioners to meet the newly-passed Martyn’s Law; and a register, aimed at ‘consultants’ and advisers’ selling their products and services for premises to comply with Martyn’s Law; is both a calamity for the country, and a vote of no-confidence in the private security industry.
In making these announcements to day two of the three-day The Security Event in a half-hour talk at the NEC yesterday (after making some of the announcements at the invite-only Home Office’s Security & Policing show at Farnborough, last month), the speaker, Heather Arrowsmith-Tosley, head of professional capability at Nactso, said that she did not have time for questions. Here, then, are my questions.
I would have asked: ‘Every sales vulture in the country will try to use Martyn’s Law to sell their products and services; some are already trying – what is there about the register to stop that?’ I can answer my own question: zero.
First, the merits of the two bodies chosen to make the qualifications, and register: the exam awarding body for the qualifications, that training centres will offer to practitioners, will be SFJ, and the ICE (Institution of Civil Engineers) will take charge of the RSES (Register of Security Engineers and Specialists). My second question to Nactso: what have either of these got to do with private security in general and counter-terrorism in particular? Nothing. A moment’s search of the ICE website will throw up that it has nothing on its site about security, only for example ‘water security’ in the sense of scarcity of that resource. While SFJ is short for Skills for Justice, formed in the 2000s to do training for prison officers. It’s spread its wings to offer training to soldiers, the fire service and police; again, the slightest glance at its website shows it has no pedigree in private security in general or counter-terrorism in particular. My question to Nactso: on what basis did they choose these two?
What about CSyPs?
It becomes doubly difficult to reconcile (and the vote of no-confidence in private security) when you consider the CSyP status, which formally is a register, of Chartered Security Professionals, run by the Security Institute since 2011. You could argue that CSyPs only number in the hundreds, and who knows how many consultants and advisers will want to go on the RSES. Still, the CSyP register organisers could do with the extra income; anyone would. A related, more detailed question: where does the CSyP stand here – will CSyPs (acknowledged as a ‘gold standard’ for security practitioners) have to form a queue for RSES, take the course and pass the exam with everyone else?
No endorsement
The authorities already know of the risk of vultures, because for years Nactso and other official speakers about Martyn’s Law have said (as did Heather Arrowsmith-Tosley, dutifully) that Nactso and the Home Office don’t endorse any third-party products or services. We can say that no-one is taking the least notice, and will take even less when the real money’s to be made when the Security Industry Authority (SIA) sets the deadline for compliance, not before 2027; although anyone trying to sell a course or piece of kit to comply with Martyn’s Law so far are clearly carpet-bagging because the details (the ‘statutory guidance’ from the Home Office) isn’t published yet, so it’s unknown what premises (museums, hospitals, nightclubs, places of worship, to name a few – plenty of potential markets!) will have to comply with.
Not pretty
The market’s scramble for ‘Martyn’s Law’ profits will not be pretty. We don’t know how big it’ll be. The Home Office’s estimates of what it’ll cost premises over the next few years to comply with Martyn’s Law is so wildly varying it’s funny – hundreds of millions, two billion pounds? For employees of security companies who are pulled up by their employer if they buy too many reams of paper for the photocopier without permission, it’s beyond joking about; but such is the cloud cuckoo-land that the Home Office and the British state lives in, a state that can let the HS2 project go tens of billions out of budget (relevant here because HS2 is due to have a stop by the NEC).
The scramble before
I saw the scramble 20 years ago during the last descent of the vultures onto the private security industry; the launch of SIA licences and the qualifications required to apply for them. Door staff, contract security guards, public space surveillance (CCTV) operators and close protection officers by the hundreds of thousands (mainly door men and guards) needed to take training courses, and training companies sprang up, took the money, and largely went away again because the training market settled, and those trainers that wanted to stay the course (pardon the pun) and gain and pass on experience, trained the steadier flow of newcomers to the sector. At least the carpet-bagging was a one-off because until recently the SIA didn’t ask for any refresher training from those renewing their licences. Under Martyn’s Law, because the terror threat will change, compliance with Martyn’s Law should be a process, not a one-off tick in a box. The carpet-baggers will bombard the hundreds of thousands of premises with a capacity of 200 and more with emails, calls and visits every time the world let alone the UK has a terrorist outrage. To say premises ought to hire qualified practitioners and those on the RSES means nothing when premises managers and operators, knowing no better, will click on whoever pays to be at the top of an internet search. Or is it (my final question) more fool them, and Nactso and the Home Office and everyone in authority have done their duty impeccably, until it’s time for them to take their pension?
A grotesque possibility
What’s grotesque about the RSES (also known as the ‘competent persons scheme’) is that it’s at least plausible that the selling of products by you or me, if we set up as ‘consultants’, or your company’s sales force – of what, fire extinguishers, bollards, klaxons, online training (the official ACT training is free, that’s probably all that ‘standard tier’ premises will have to do, to show compliance)? – all that may, or may not, actually match threats to premises (or neighbours). All the spend might not leave the country better prepared for an act of terror. Who will be measuring?
Photo by Mark Rowe: Birmingham city centre.
