The July edition of Professional Security Magazine has a major feature reviewing the first year of the Labour Government elected with a big majority in July 2024. A related question: what’s the state of the manned guarding sector?
Some guarding firms, like the two MDs’ companies, are choosy about what sectors they work in, although naturally if a customer asked them to enter an unfamiliar field, they might not say no. An MD spoke interestingly about some of the fields his firm stays out of. ‘Fast retail’ for one; because (like services) the margins are thin and profits are made thanks to large volumes. If a security officer deployed at a store costs £200 for a day, and does not prevent £200 of stock loss …. that retailer might ask itself whether it makes sense to employ them. Retailers may want more out of officers than they can deliver. A retailer might ask for loss prevention, and staff safety, which are not the same thing (a telling sign of which one the security guard is expected to pay most attention to is where they position themselves; at the entrance, to stop shop thieves at the door, or among staff on the aisles or at the tills?). Another sector the MD avoids is large events; or the likes of Wimbledon tennis fortnight. Except a core of contracted specialists, most of those at such an event will not have done it before. They will be a large force of stewards that are not SIA-badged (to this MD’s mind, ‘bizarre’): “For me, it’s too much of a risk.”
Law critiqued
This MD offered amounted to a critique of Martyn’s Law, the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act, as made law in April, that will require (when enforced in about 2027 by the Security Industry Authority) premises to take measures to counter the threat of terrorism. For the MD, premises managers are divided in two: those that do good already, that more or less meet Martyn’s Law already, and those that don’t, and won’t despite the new law, and will only get signatures on a paper for showing compliance. This MD felt that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) would have made a better regulator than the SIA, because it already knows about buildings. This MD felt that focus would be better on large events, rather than ‘village fayre’ type events, where there’s not much risk. The MD would like to see venues do something concrete like pay to bring in stewards and security staff in, two hours earlier on a shift, to be more thoroughly briefed.
Faces of Janus
Any MD has to face two ways (if not more), like the Roman god Janus; inwards to his business, whether to stay in touch with staff, physically on site, at whatever hour they are on duty, or to stay informed about issues (PPE – personal protective equipment, recruitment, prompt payment and so on) and outwards, to represent the contractor to clients, and to stay informed about changes to the security industry such as Martyn’s Law, and current affairs in the sectors (oil and gas, public transport, shopping centres and so on) that the firm specialises in. A glance at some MDs’ Linkedin posts (which themselves take time to craft) shows how much work an MD can have, showing their face internally. It’s striking how well informed an MD can be, about sectors his firm works in, which prompted Professional Security to ask one: do you ever get to sleep? To be an MD, he answered, ‘you have to have an inquisitive mind’.
Photo by Mark Rowe: steward at Manchester city centre’s German Christmas Market, late 2024.
For part one – click here.
