I am very proud to have created the Peter Greenwood Award in 1995 after Peter’s untimely death.
The name Peter Greenwood is now synonymous with the security industry and Peter will never be forgotten. The Peter Greenwood Award is now recognised as the longest established individual award in the security profession. Peter was the chairman of the Security Industry Lead Body (SILB) Implementation Group when I was the chairman of the Systems Security Industry Lead Body before the merger of systems with manned guarding services. In my opinion the SILB changed the face of the security industry at that time and laid the roadmap for the journey to professionalism and where we find ourselves. It was a time of pioneers who worked tirelessly to enhance the cohesion and expertise of the security industry as it was then. None more so than Peter Greenwood, he was relentless in his quest for one consolidated security profession. Another of those early pioneers was Ray Clarke founder of SITO (Security Industry Training Organisation). He revolutionised training for the manned guarding services then, and he is doing it all again as CEO of IQ (Industry Qualifications) with SAFE and Vocational Compass. Ray Clarke is the 2013 recipient of the Peter Greenwood Award and someone who more than deserves this prized accolade.
The venue for the award this year was the ECA’s gala dinner and awards evening, at the ICC, Birmingham. The award, sponsored by the Fire and Security Association (FSA) and awarded by the Worshipful Company of Security Professionals (WCoSP), was presented to Ray by TV personality Marcus Brigstocke;, FSA Chairman Pat Allen; and ECA President Phil Fagg. Master of ceremonies for the evening was Stefan Hay, head of the FSA. Stefan told the audience about Ray’s background and said: “Raymond Clarke has been a leading and well respected figure and has held senior roles within the security industry and the vocational education sector since 1988. Originally appointed as the training manager for the British Security Industry Association, he went on to create the Security Industry Training Organisation and successfully led the organisation in becoming one of the country’s leading national training organisations. His tireless dedication to the sector led to the development of a training and vocational learning infrastructure that ranged from the development of the first National Occupational Standards, to developing supporting training materials, resulting qualifications, relationships with awarding bodies and regional co-operatives dedicated to the delivery of apprenticeships for the security systems industry. He also became one of the country’s most successful bid writers for public funding to support education in the sector securing millions of pounds for educational based projects. He has made a valuable and long lasting contribution and he is, therefore, a most worthy recipient of the Peter Greenwood Award.”
I can’t think of anyone more worthy to be presented with the Peter Greenwood Award. After the event I caught up with Ray. How did he feel when he realised he had won? Ray replied: “Both honoured and humbled. I have been touched by the kind things that I, and those that I have had the privilege of leading, are said to have contributed to the industry over the years and I am grateful to the FSA and the Worshipful Company of Security Professionals for this recognition. To be recognised in this way by my peers gives rise to some reflection. For the most part, I have thoroughly enjoyed working in the industry and am grateful for the support from colleagues and the friendships that have developed along the way. When I entered the industry in 1988, I was escaping from a dull job and never intended to spend more than two years – that was 25 years ago! I was so lucky to fall into an industry where there was an opportunity to make a contribution, and in those early years, to work for a boss like David Fletcher (former Chief Executive of BSIA), who provided the space for an eager and often impatient 27-year-old to succeed. I will be forever grateful to him.” I think that there are a lot of people who are grateful to David Fletcher including me. He was ahead of his time in many ways and only had the interest of the BSIA at heart. I asked Ray his recollections of that time and in particular the SILB. Ray said: “The award is particularly significant to me because of its association with Peter. I had been appointed as the first training manager of the BSIA for about six months when I had a call from Peter Greenwood, wanting to arrange a meeting. We met and he explained that the government were seeking to establish employer bodies (industry lead bodies) to lead on the development of standards and NVQs. At the time, just six months in to developing what was another form of government approved body, an industry training organisation, I viewed this as a significant inconvenience and was at best suspicious of Peter’s motives. I need not have worried; Peter was one of those rare people in life without any hidden agenda and an ability to bring people together. We worked together during the six years or so that the Security ILBs were in existence and it was one of those few occasions where all of the industry bodies were pulling in the same direction. Much of the credit for the creation of that environment was down to Peter. Given the politics that always swirl around representative bodies, this was no mean achievement. Whilst the output of the ILB’s were the national occupational standards and NVQs that form the foundation of what we have today, the co-operation and trust engendered led to wide support from representative bodies for SITO to be recognised as the National Training Organisation (forerunner to Sector Skills Councils) for the sector.” I told him he changed the face of training then with the introduction of SITO; now he is doing it again via IQ. Ray smiled and said: “That is kind of you. With SITO I was fortunate to enter the industry at a time that was very different from today. In the guarding industry there were no national qualifications; training, if it took place at all, was measured by duration and not content and there was no assessment. Industry leaders were almost entirely former Army or police officers and meetings were usually conducted in smoke filled rooms! In this environment, the choice was to do something or nothing. If you did something, change was inevitable.” The systems industry was more complex, there was an apprenticeship scheme run by the NSCIA (forerunner to the NSI) and a City and Guilds knowledge-based qualification. The issues were access and how the existing structure fitted with the emerging government thinking around NVQs. Within SITO we developed the new NVQs for the sector and created the apprenticeship co-operatives but many of the issues concerning access still remain, even today.”
So how is IQ developing, I asked. Once again Ray smiled before saying: “With Industry Qualifications (IQ) we perhaps have a bigger challenge – a regulated, competitive and crowded market, in which we need to offer a distinct approach. We are seeking to create an awarding organisation that has a strong focus on quality, works in partnership with suppliers and customers, and offers highly competitive pricing. Our target has been to create a Premium awarding brand. Our approach has been to develop a unique and distinctive operational model. IQ is the UK’s only mutual awarding organisation. We operate with capped margins of three per cent (far lower than the sector norm), and provide service level agreements, which if not met, reduce our fees to customers. Our approach to quality is far more rigorous than most awarding organisations – in the security sector we rejected some 20 per cent of centre applications last year. We are also working with customers and suppliers to help them develop markets in the UK and overseas – a form of active engagement that is not common from awarding organisations. In an environment where most new awarding organisations are seeking to do the job cheaper to grab market share, the IQ approach is to try to do the job better”. Where to now from here, I asked. Ray replied: “On a personal level my focus is developing IQ into a major international player in the awarding, certification and consultancy market. We are developing a very strong team and creating a powerful network to underpin these aspirations. This will be the prime focus of my work until I retire, and probably beyond. The more challenging issues relate to the security sector and how education is developed at a strategic level over the coming years. With the cuts to government funding for the development of standards, and the emergence of a highly competitive training market in the manned services part of the industry in particular, urgent consideration needs to be given to establishing a sustainable mechanism for the development of industry standards. The old SITO commercial model on which Skills for Security was created, no longer works. When fully fledged sector skills councils are struggling, how can a narrowly based standards body with a reduced commercial presence be expected to shoulder the strategic development alone? There are solutions, but it really does require the industry, perhaps with the support of the SIA, to come together to agree an approach. Perhaps a leaf can be taken from Peter Greenwood’s book and efforts made to bring together the wider stake-holders to move forward. On the systems side of the industry, the pace of technological change combined with problems relating to sustainable volumes of students and the lack of geographical access to quality security systems training, requires some thinking. The work that Tavcom is undertaking in developing its e-learning academy will help at the delivery level, but a radical rethink is required at the strategic level. Both the level of technological change and the need for a local delivery network really requires the electro-technical sector to play a far stronger role in security systems education. In both cases, the absence of government funding should fuel serious and open debate in the security sector. Without it, gaps will start to re-emerge in the sector’s educational infrastructure, and in particular in those roles and those levels that are not covered by regulation, and there will be an increasing risk of fragmentation. Perhaps it is time for the emergence of new thinking.”
