Town and city crime partnerships do much the same things around the UK – they seek to detect and keep out the prolific criminals, to make the place welcoming for the rest.
At one such partnership, the manager’s marketing background means she promotes things differently. Avoiding the word ‘crime’ for instance. Mark Rowe reports.
We judge a place, any place, on two things, says Angie Took, chief executive of Wolverhampton City Centre Company: is it clean; and is it safe? Quality of life, and safety, then, are her watch-words, rather than retail crime – the name of the initiative the city centre company took over from.
In the entrance
The name of the retailer the shopping centre do not matter, but before and after I met Angie Took, two out of three times I passed a security officer standing in the entrance of a clothes store. Very short hair, chin beard, blue short -sleeved shirt (showing arm tattoo), dark tie and trousers.
On display
Now it could be that the retailer wants the security officer to do that – stand at the way in, to visually deter thieves. And he may achieve that. But from talking with Angie Took, other thoughts come to mind: is the gain from keeping out thieves offset by any law-abiding casual customers seeing the man on the door and finding him off-putting, and walking to another shop? Put another way, the retailer puts great store (pardon the pun) into its window displays, into how it markets itself to passers-by – should Security be any different?
No right or wrong
This debate goes on in loss prevention in retail, and corporate guarding: should security staff wear smart blazers; or a more police-like shirt, tie and epaulettes? And there is not a right or a wrong answer. Like so much in life, it is a matter of (client) opinion. Angie Took in her office in the centre of Wolverhampton – above a shopping centre and car park – points out that the city’s two main shopping centres have different style of security uniform.
Collating information
Like many town and city partnerships, Wolverhampton’s runs a radio link for members, such as retailers, pubs and other city centre businesses. Angie adds: “And as part of that service we collate the intelligence reports, we provide members with information, current, topical information, that we think is essential to them; we look at training; and provide information on training. We are trying to build up a database, or base-line, of what tools we have in the city: how many radios, how many CCTV; and compile a map of where that all is. And where the first-aiders are, where the pharmacies are: in terms of emergency planning, where there is food, blankets.” So security people fit into the partnership – as Angie says at the start, security people know their buildings, the streets, better than anybody.
On display
Angie recalls she came to the city two and a half years ago, to find a lot of partnership work and goodwill already. The security training and awareness, meetings, retail radio and so on come under the banner of CitySafe. It’s about positive messages, Angie says. The city centre company’s brochures and other material use bright colours: you have to search hard to find the word ‘crime’; rather, the stress is on a city safe for shoppers and visitors. So no traffic sign-style red circles with a diagonal line, to denote shop thieves or whoever are banned. Angie says of such notices: “How horrible is that, it’s a dreadful message. In Wolverhampton we don’t have that.” The other project of the city centre company is CityEye, which has brought together police, fire, the Drug Action Team, local authority, and city centre private landlords. Alleyways may be dirty, or have graffiti, or illegal car parking, or may be crime hot-spots; hence a couple of joint action days so far, where all those agencies to clear up an alley.
It’s about image
Angie says: “So on the one hand I certainly don’t have a security background; but by coming at it from the point of view, it’s about image of the city centre, about quality of environment.” Partly too, it’s a case of not being confrontational in approach, so that when the city centre company approaches shops, pubs or whoever, the company speaks of what it is doing in terms of cleaning-up – “they haven’t got a business case against what we are doing”. Marketing herself as a crime organisation, in Angie’s opinion, would send the wrong message. That is not to deny there is crime; it is being tackled. Angie mentions here the police community support officers, “who are absolutely wonderful in this city. But we don’t need to constantly remind the shoppers that they are in a crime area, because they don’t need it. They need to know we are doing something about it; and our message, Wolverhampton is a safe city, hopefully gives some comfort.”
Comfort of blazers
To return to that anecdote of the loss prevention officer at the store entrance. Angie’s view is that police officers make people feel safe, but she is not sure that heavily-badged security officers offer the same comfort. Mall security staff in blazers are more approachable, she feels. (As she says, it’s all about perception. On leaving her office, in a bakery, I saw four police men and women, in anti-stab vests but carrying their headgear under their arms. My thought was, ‘hello, hello, what’s going on here!?’ but later I saw the officers chatting smilingly on the mall with a couple of elderly shoppers.)
Feeling safe
Angie went on: “I think if you keep telling the public they aren’t safe, because there’s all these things in place, they will continue to feel they aren’t safe, and what we are trying to do here is make people feel safe.” And so are police forces, she points out; fear of crime is a target. She does not approve, then, of car park signs that say ‘thieves operate in this area’; yes, people need to be aware if that is the case, but the message should be given differently.
BID watching brief
Bottom line as ever is money, budget. The city centre company is paid for by the council and businesses. BIDs – Business Improvement Districts – are one way hailed by the Government of giving town and city centres extra cash to spend on services – street sweeping, patrols, CCTV, extra lighting, whatever the businesses ask for. OK, it’s an extra tax on all businesses inside the district, but at least it’s fair – no more free-loaders who benefit from cleaner streets or fewer shop thieves, the same as the public-spirited businesses who pay their dues to a crime partnership. Some London BIDs have passed in the last few months. Wolverhampton did look at it, but has decided to keep a watching brief. Yes, BID money would be nice, but Angie points to the cost and time to bring a BID to a vote of businesses. A majority have to vote yes for a BID to pass; and Maidstone recently saw a no vote.
Radio link
If CitySafe or any other partnership does not get BID status, how difficult is it to convince businesses to part with money for security and other schemes? “It isn’t difficult, really,” Angie replies. She points to the strict controls on the radio scheme so retail radios are used properly (it is her name on the licence, after all). “We have demanded a minimum spec, so all of them have an emergency button, and that meant all they have to do is press the emergency button and people are alerted to the fact that the person in charge of the radio has an emergency situation. That is part of the emergency planning procedure we are trying to put into the city centre; but it’s also a means of protecting staff. People want the radio as a tool; and it’s not an expensive tool.”
Evening economy
What of the evening economy? The city centre company brought in consultants to report on the city economy, especially the night-time economy. “On a Friday and Saturday night you can have anything between 15 and 20,000 people in the city centre,” Angie says. Besides the pubs and clubs that are open until very late, she speaks too of the early evening economy: the restaurants, theatre. She is encouraging night businesses to join the radio scheme; and some pubs and others are open day and night – all eyes and ears for law enforcers. Also with a part to play are the college and university, bus and rail: the overall aim, to make the city fit for purpose, and not a no-go area, whether at 2pm or 2am.
Security KPIs
One of the more intriguing phrases on the CitySafe list of projects is ‘security officers KPI’. Key performance indicators for security guarding or any other service are something of a holy grail (recall the article, ‘KPIs are key to satisfied clients’, by OCS Chief Executive Chris Cracknell in our May issue). Angie replied that a lot of security officers are measured by how many villains they capture. “What I would like to see is how many thefts they prevent.” She admits there is a lot of work to do around that – such as encouraging security staff to fill in incident forms, a common refrain of town and city centre managers – but she links it to her theme, the message her organisation puts out: is it positive, or negative?
Boys and girls in the hood
Angie was speaking the week of the media five-minute rumpus about hooded tops (‘hoodies’) being banned from the Bluewater shopping centre; and Prime Minister Tony Blair and deputy John Prescott commenting with favour – Mr Prescott admitting he had a near run-in with threatening youths. As with so much described by Angie – manned security; signage – perception matters, besides reality. Yes, young women standing in a group on a street corner and being noisy may appear threatening; young men may be big, and look intimidating. But young people are not all bad, Angie adds. Which brings us to section 30 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 – in other words, a local authority and police can make an order in named streets (even towpaths) so that two or more ‘acting or likely to act in an anti-social manner’ can be asked to move on. Under 16s can be asked to go home after 9pm – a curfew, in other words. The authorities have used the power – once granted, it lasts six months – widely, in London and the regions. In Wolverhampton, a section 30 order came in, in Broad Street; Angie reports that police proposed to extend the order to the whole of the city centre.
Section 30 order
For all the genuine talk so far of co-operation between public and private sectors, Angie is at loggerheads with police on this one. She says: “From my point of view, once the general public begin to understand we have a section 30 order – and section 30 notices have to be published – we are sending the message out to the visitors, the shoppers, our residents, that the city centre is not safe, because we have required a section 30.”
