Businesses have to weigh up – and wise up – to whether they can benefit from working in and with business crime partnerships, it’s suggested. Richard Barron of the Association of Business Crime Partnerships (ABCP) spoke to Mark Rowe.
One piece of work of the previous Labour government – the regulation of some private security sectors by the Security Industry Authority – was soon thrown into uncertainty by the Coalition. Its autumn 2010 review of quangos such as the SIA is rumbling into 2011 at least. Another feature of the Labour 1997-2010 era – the stressing of crime and disorder partnership working after the Crime and Disorder Act 1997 – has arguably as much of a home in the Coalition, given Prime Minister David Cameron’s theme of the ‘Big Society’. Quite what that means – and what it will cost – remains to be seen. But partnership working and the ‘big society’ is the theme of the ABCP annual conference in May. Partnership working requires two things: police and others in the public sector to work with the private sector; and businesses, retailers and others, to work together despite their high street rivalry for common benefits – reducing or preventing crime, and saving money as a result.
Richard Barron, company secretary of the ABCP, has a retail management background, with Marks & Spencer. More recently he was the West Midlands regional manager for Action Against Business Crime, the forerunner of ABCP; and worked for the environmental campaigning group Encams, more familiarly known as Keep Britain Tidy. Richard speaks of a ‘mixed economy’ of responses from police to partnerships. Some forces do more with and for business crime partnerships than others. One bugbear is the definition of business crime, as Richard points out. As there’s no agreed definition of business crime – or no definition of it at all – it’s harder for police to measure how well they do, and as with other services, what doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get done. Richard however feels strongly about taking seriously people’s perceptions of safety and security, and quality of life, which are related, he argues. If you visit somewhere and return to your parked car to find it not there, stolen, what will you think about that place? Is car theft a business crime?
As Richard says, business crime partnerships have been with a focus on retail and other businesses. Looking back to his Keep Britain Tidy work, he asks if businesses are part of the community, and suggests that communities have got to get together with businesses, to support each other: “Because I think they are interdependent on each other.” He argues that it’s no good a residential area being well looked after, if the town shopping centre on their doorstep has graffiti and litter, and vice versa. Business crime partnerships are only as strong as the services they provide; and how to make partnerships sustainable has long been a question. Some partnerships have found making ends meet in the recession difficult, like business generally; partnerships’ income comes from members’ subscriptions, or sponsorship, though some have regular income from retail radio rentals, provided to shop, pub and club and other members. Given that police forces face cuts, partnerships may do more police-style things; or may have to. Maybe the day has passed when you see a police officer on the high street; or, will the police presence be a community support officer instead. Richard mentions the NBIS (National Business Information Software) product used by some partnerships to record shop crime and other data. Are there, he asks, cost savings, demonstrable to police, thanks to a partnership dealing with an offender without police having necessarily to attend or make an arrest. Richard Barron recalls that in his days as a store manager, if there was a shoplifter, police would be called, and the retailer would leave it to the police to dispose of the offender. The Ministry of Justice has suggested more use of restorative justice and fewer prison sentences. Might be barrier before an offender enters the criminal justice system become higher? And if the Coalition wants to see more ‘community sentences’, might crime partnerships have a part to play in making restorative justice meaningful? This is not to take a position on whether more community punishment and less prison as suggested by the Coalition’s Justice Secretary Ken Clarke (and as discussed by Jim Gannon in the February issue of Professional Security magazine) is good or bad. If it happens, will business crime partnerships, and the retail victims of shoplifting, have a say, with the probation service for example, about which shoplifters should go through restorative justice, and which should go through criminal courts and possibly prison. This change would be for businesses and indeed society to decide.
For years partnerships have been giving exclusion orders to offenders; partnership members can then deny entry to the known offender. How much does that save a police force, the cost of turning up to a shoplifter? What’s the saving by deterring others from shop crime? The saving in stock loss, at stock-taking time? In a word, what are the benefits of partnership working? Richard says: “We have to get closer to high street stores, to try to interrogate some of their data; what have you saved by being an active member of a partnership?”
I mention to him the survey findings reported in the February issue of Professional Security, after the Public CCTV Managers Association (PCMA) sought in 2010 to do something similar – work out the value of public space CCTV schemes, whether to the public or police or other town centre users. Richard gives another example of a saving to businesses; if partnership working – whether by offering training to staff, or excluding offenders – means that shop or other customer-facing staff keep safe from assault. What’s the saving if staff are not absent from the workplace, thanks to not being injured or upset after a robbery-related or other assault? At a time of economic struggle, can keeping a shop and its staff safer be the difference between that shop closing or not?
The ABCP seeks to be the voice of business crime partnerships in England and Wales (for Scotland, visit the Scottish Business Crime Centre, www.sbcc.org.uk); to spread the word about partnership work; and to have conversations, even if businesses or others then decide it’s not for them. To return to the definition of business crime, how wide is it? Metal thefts from business parks? Thefts of lead from church roofs? Cyber-crime from retailer websites? Richard mentions housing associations; some are very large, and doing a lot of work on keeping places clean and safe, for a better quality of life for householders. Could collaboration benefit all sides? And shoppers and consumers too? From his Keep Britain Tidy days, Richard recalls surveys asking people who made them feel safe, or unsafe. It was not the extremes of gun or knife crime that people flagged, but things like litter, and graffiti; and young people hanging around, intimidating, even if the youths were doing nothing wrong. How to act on these obvious indicators; and how to prove that you have acted? Here ABCP can point to its safer business award accreditation. The ABCP is looking at offering a way of smaller partnerships to get accredited. As Richard points out, shoppers are discerning. They may prefer to drive to a big, out of town, regional shopping mall rather than a traditional high street. Retailers cannot be complacent.
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