After the launch yesterday at Mitie’s head office at The Shard in London of a level four qualification by SFJ Awards, for a ‘protective security adviser’, to an audience from the security industry and the UK official bodies that backed it, the NPSA, NCSC and NACE, several people asked me what I thought. Below is one thing I replied to them, and one I have slept on.
I replied that it was gratifying to see the fruit of years of work, that made the qualification possible. To give an example; the qualification has 14 modules, some obvious (cyber, physical security), some modish (security as a ‘business enabler’) and some ‘Cinderellas’ (personnel security). One of the authors of a module mentioned that they are a Chartered Security Professional. That standard dates from 2010; as a ‘gold standard’ it allows the holder to stand alongside other professionals: accountants, surveyors, doctors. They can be trusted with such tasks as writing a syllabus that UK governmental security authorities such as the National Protective Security Authority can endorse; not only because they have attained CSyP, but they carry out CPD (continued professional development), because just as you don’t want a surgeon to become rusty before they operate on your organs, so the wise security professional keeps themselves up to date about the (changing) threats.
Likewise, it’ll be gratifying to see this qualification taken up; because those who gain it, having invested in themselves, have a more of a stake in remaining in private security; hence the sector should retain more talent (a chronic problem for it), quite apart from such people doing better work, meaning safer assets and ultimately a safer country.
As more than one person at the launch recalled, they had begun as a security officer and had worked their way up to senior and responsible positions. What they had found most difficult, and what this level four is well placed to address, was the step from security officer to manager. Partly, it calls for a change in attitude; you have to go from an officer being told what to do, where to stand, and when (which does have its good and bad sides – you may not be encouraged to show initiative, but you may appreciate not having to think for yourself) to telling others what to do (maybe former colleagues, or people older and more experienced, but not as qualified, as you).
Pathway
The ambition to make that progression has to come from within; also, you have to see a pathway, whether you are mentored by someone who sees your potential and puts opportunities your way; or, you take a qualification, so that strangers can see that you are competent in an occupation, and, more subtly, are prepared to invest in yourself. In practice however, as someone at the event mentioned; if you are a security officer earning £13 or £14 an hour, it’s asking a lot to find the money for a training course (and £2200 was given as the cost of this level four), while still paying the rent and buying food. The ask is greater than that, while less monetarily than for a higher, master’s degree, a level seven qualification from a university.
Savings
The regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has released details of a survey of UK people’s savings. One in ten have none; and another fifth have less than £1000. For the typical security officer, who’s not able to draw on parents with money to spare, something is always more pressing than spending even well below £2200 on themselves, with a return on that investment uncertain. Never mind savings for a ‘rainy day’; security officers may wonder where they are going to find money to replace their ageing washing machine; for repairs to a car (or moped), to put off buying a slightly less clapped-out one; for new shoes, for their children if not themselves (is there a sadder sound than the flapping of a security officer’s sole, because he doesn’t have a spare pair?).
Those trainers offering the course may want to split the £2200 into the 14 modules, just as buying a train ticket online you can pay it in three PayPal instalments, and rather than pay £100 or more for an academic electronic book, you can pay £20 for the single chapter you want. However that doesn’t address the gap between the means of working people, and the cost to better themselves.
Someone at the event mentioned the scholarships offered in the name of the former chair of the SIA, Baroness Ruth Henig, who died last year; offered through the Security Institute, £500 each. As a Labour peer who as a provincial in the 1960s enjoyed free funding of her university degree in London, that enabled her to become an academic historian, she would have had choice words to say about how times have changed.
This is not to condemn anyone, for the issue goes beyond private security and applies to care workers who may want to study to become a nurse; and a warehouse operative who wants to become a superviser and manager; or a fork lift truck driver who wants to drive a lorry. This issue of social mobility – tellingly, a phrase gone out of fashion – is political; it is for a Labour government that Baroness Henig never lived to see to decide what sort of country Britain is; how hard we want it to be for working people to get on.
