The suitably historic Redworth Manor Hall in County Durham was the venue this week for the two-day International Arts & Antiquities Security Forum (IAASF) conference. Security and cultural heritage people gathered to discuss threats to museums and their assets, and what can be done to protect them.
The host was Andy Davis of Trident Manor, who told Professional Security Magazine: “We want to help protect and preserve heritage, in the world and in the UK.” Hence the latest annual conference, ‘where we can share information, increase people’s knowledge of the threats that exist, and also the simple actions that people can take to help reduce the risk to their organisation and the assets.” As he added, many cultural sights will fall under the proposed Martyn’s Law, that this month had its second reading in the House of Commons, that looks like becoming law in 2027, whereby – formally titled the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act – premises of capacity of 200 and more will have a legal responsibility to take steps to counter terrorism. Day one included an update from the UK official National Counter Terrorism Security Office (Nactso).
Andy stressed that the risks and vulnerabilities to cultural assets are more than the museum and gallery items behind glass. Indeed, as the first speaker of day two, Konstantinos Chatziandreou, set out, entire historic city centres (his focus was on several in Germany) merit consideration in terms of resilience, not least from climate change (which already brings the risks of extreme heat and flooding).
Risks to the resilience of cultural venues are not only crime such as theft; but fire (a point made on day one by a return speaker at the IAASF, the veteran consultant Stewart Kidd), damage from water, dust, even rodents; interruption by protesters; and even human error. Hence Andy’s stress on prevention, rather than relying on a reactive response, ‘because if you are able to do that protective prevention, you are not worrying about insurance …. You are preventing that loss, harm, or damage in the first place; which in a heritage context is really important, because once it’s gone, it’s gone.’
Risk
Two speakers on day two set out how risk assessment can and should be the starting point, whether done for a venue by a consultancy (Hannah Miller of Trident Manor) or in-house (Chad Simpson, resilience and security lead for Science Museum Group, whose emergency management role covers some six sites, including the landmark South Kensington in west London, pictured). Chad argued that risk is unpredictable, and ‘wicked’; meaning that risk assessment should also look at where your organisation is vulnerable, and ‘what if’ scenarios. Work to mitigate those risks ought to be an active process, and build resilience, for example towards communication by incident responders, for decision-making.
Ukraine
Day two opened with a reminder of how cultural protection is global; last year’s conference raised £3500 which went on two trunks of basic materials for rescue and preservation of artefacts in Ukraine – items wanted such as rice paper, glue, paint, and digital cameras (for recording of artefacts) – shipped into the country via Poland. Culture is a living thing, as set out by Steve Stenning of the British Council, who described the workings since 2017 of the Cultural Protection Fund by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), across Africa and Asia from Algeria and Turkey to Bangladesh. Finance, as Professional Security heard, unavoidably plays a part, particularly in council-run museums and venues, as local government faces further cuts; the cultural sector, facing financial uncertainty, and is looking to the DCMS and the Heritage Lottery Fund. If the effects of cuts will mean fewer staff on duty, that raises the question of whether enough staff will be around to protect assets; and if the budget will be there for upgrades of technical security or security officers.
Day one had a reminder of how museums face cyber besides real-world risks, from Jen Kaines, of Royal Armouries Leeds, who offered ‘lessons learnt’ after her institution faced cyber attack.
More in the December edition of Professional Security Magazine.
