A senior guarding company MD has suggested inspectors of SIA approved contractors might have to sort the ‘wheat from the chaff’.
Mick Lee of Constant Security was speaking at a Perpetuity conference at Chelsea FC. Although the approved contractor scheme (ACS) is voluntary, it is difficult to see how a contract guarding firm can act, unless it is approved, he said. A problem with the ACS now is that you only have to fill a form in. The crunch will come when the approved firms are inspected, whether by the National Security Inspectorate (NSI) or others. Constant, among the earliest approved firms, are approved in guarding, public space CCTV surveillance, door supervision and key-holding. Their assessing body is Insight Certification, in other words NSI. Mick Lee said he hoped that inspection would sort out the wheat from the chaff. Will ACS standards be enforced? he asked. He answered: “We hope so.” He raised a concern about the SIA; that it was one thing for the regulator to deal with door staff without a licence; anothe thing to take on a multi-national over licences. Speaking on September 7, he said: “There have been no prosecutions for working as a security officer or deploying a security officer without a licence. I am therefore a little concerned; will the ACS standards be enforced? From the security industry point of view, there’s a lot of people going to be disappointed if the government doesn’t do its job.” The industry had invested a lot in licences and the ACS, he added.
Stewards
Speaking earlier to Professional Security, Mick Lee (wearing his SIA front-line licence – he runs events at York racecourse) raised the recent Home Office decision not to require sports event stewards to have SIA badges. Mick Lee described it as ‘fiddling while Rome burns’, feeling that stewards were more in need of licences than a nightwatchman, and fearing that an incident with stewards without licences could be bad publicity for the whole security industry.
Tendering
Speaking at the conference on CCTV for housing, he spoke of how public sector tendering was traditionally to buy ‘the least from the cheapest’. A quality company might have to be brought in (without tendering) to clear up the mess when the first contractor left. He called on the audience of council and housing association managers and crime prevention officers to demand more value for money when drawing tenders.
Graduates
As for changes as a result of the SIA, Mick Lee spoke of starting to see graduates starting to leave university and applying for security management posts, as a career, rather than entering security after something else – and bringing police or armed forces experience, but also perhaps pre-conceived ideas. Costs will go up, but there will be a more valued and credible workforce, he said. He gave the example of the Kirkless council contract for housing at Berry Brow near Huddersfield, a topic earlier in the conference for Perpetuity consultant Malcolm Brown, from the CCTV side. Mick Lee foresaw real partnership working with other agencies – happening in some places already, but not others, if police were reluctant to engage. Constant for example is providing conflict management training for a warden scheme. The police community safety accreditation scheme (whereby police forces can accredit guarding firms or other guard forces, last featured last issue) has gone flat and quiet, Mick Lee thought, maybe owing to the recent aborted amalgamation of police forces.
Report breaches
Mick Lee said: “CCTV is brilliant; and I remember it when it was rubbish.” But it is only as good as the human response, he suggested. At Berry Brow, officers had drastically reduced incidents, and while officers did not have the power of arrest, they were able to report tenants for breaches of tenancy – a powerful weapon for the housing body. Because the Berry Brow officers were selected and trained for the particular contract – and there was zero turnover – police, Mick Lee suggested, were coming to the officers for help. Staff who could offer such continuity could add value – on a 12-hour shift, he said, an officer might do other services, such as document shredding. Replying to a question from the floor about officer hours, Mick Lee raised the fireman-style four days on, four days off, 42-hour week, adding that staff were used to 12-hour shifts; but the problems came when shifts became 13 or 14 hours.
Old lady
He ended with a story – his company’s ‘finest reference’ – when he attended a meeting of residents. When the tenants were asked about the security service, an old lady said that for the first time in years she, living on the ground floor, had felt safe to open her windows at night when it was warm. This prompted a debate about how to measure, and put into monetary terms, that old lady’s safety. While saying that peace of mind was a powerful brand, Mick Lee pointed also to the more practical gain that whereas before the security contract a number of flats had been empty (because of the area’s bad reputation for crime and drug-related anti-social behaviour), now there were far fewer properties empty. Prof Martin Gill, chairing the event, pressed for the need to make a real-world, persuasive case for investing in security, more than the intangible feeling of happier tenants feeling safer.
