Art galleries and museums face any number of threats – thieves; protesters who seek publicity by occupying rooms or even damaging works; let alone floods, fires and anything that can harm cultural artefacts. In the December edition of Professional Security Magazine, as part of our coverage of Andy Davis’ recent IAASF conference in County Durham on heritage security and resilience, we feature one such risk; red wine.
As cultural institutions struggle to make ends meet, especially given a likely further bout of public sector belt-tightening, hiring our rooms or entire venues for dinners or corporate gatherings is attractive. Yet if you’re the Cutty Sark at Greenwich, do you want high heels of lady diners that might harm the historic planking? (You don’t.) The relevant rule here is Annex F of the GIS (Government Indemnity Scheme) arising from the National Heritage Act 1980. It covers what cultural venues must and mustn’t do, to keep within the scheme. The Arts Council is reviewing the conditions, though it hasn’t set any timetable. Meanwhile, if you’re a museum or gallery that comes under the scheme and you’re hosting an evening do, you have to invigilate carefully – you don’t want someone whether maliciously or absent-mindedly dropping red wine over the masterpieces?!
It’s the time of year for us to review the year – that’s seen Martyn’s Law taken up by the new Labour government, and well on its way through the Houses of Parliament towards becoming an actual law, a legal responsibility on hundreds of thousands of premises such as nightclubs, pubs, cinemas, museums and shopping centres to take measures to protect against terrorism. It stands to be the largest single change to the work of the private security sector in the UK for a generation, since the coming in of the regulator the Security Industry Authority (SIA) in the mid-2000s; and the SIA is in line to be the regulator and inspector of Martyn’s Law.
As ever we aim to offer something of use or interest to anyone in the British Isles whose field is private security, whatever their vertical market, or job – installer, manager, or consultant or specifier. We continue our series on business crime reduction partnerships; make a return visit to a council’s CCTV control room; and round off the year as we started it, with a look at the protection of the railways. Plus knife crime; workplace monitoring; and exercising.
Plus regulars such as magazine MD Roy Cooper’s page of gossip, for and about manufacturers and distributors of security products and services; and a digest of the online calendar of industry events.
You can freely read the December edition and past months’ Professional Security Magazines on the ‘magazine‘ part of the website.
Photo by Mark Rowe: Palace of Westminster from Albert Embankment, November morning.
