Una Riley, as a former owner of an accredited NSI approved company, tell us she was looking forward to catching up with the relatively new NSI Chief Executive โ Jeff Little OBE, MBA.
Jeff and I had arranged to meet up for lunch at a City of London eatery. I had not met him before but I had done my home work. I knew that Jeff had previously been a Brigadier in the Army and served a long and distinguished career that had been recognised with the OBE for his leadership during the Balkans War. He completed his career with the Army in 2008 having attained the senior position as director of the Royal Logistics Corps. We began to talk about the background of the the National Security Inspectorate (NSI) from its formation in 1971 as the National Supervisory Council for Intruder Alarms (NSCIA), to when it became the National Approval Council for Security Systems (NACOSS) which was formed from the merger of the NSCIA and the Security Systems Inspectorate (SSI). Its role was to continue to improve standards in line with increasingly tougher requirements of the insurance sector and the police national alarms policy at the time. We talked about David Holt (a predecessor and CEO) who was in my opinion instrumental in driving standards upwards in the security industry, achieving widespread recognition from insurers, police and security buyers. David was also responsible for the extension of scope to include CCTV and access control systems for inspection by NACOSS and the introduction of a unique internal customer communication conduit at that time called the Regional Managers Forums. In 2001 the ISI and NACOSS merged to create a unified inspectorate – NSI, covering all elements of the security industry, with the goal of creating a one-stop-shop for the benefit of customers and suppliers alike. It was also around this time that that due to increasing demand from the fire sector for third party certification that the NSI extended its scope into fire. Many security companies already installed fire detection systems so it was a step in the right direction for them and in line with the one stop ethos for NSI. Yet another step in this direction was in 2006 when NSI was appointed as an assessing body for the Security Industry Authority (SIA) Approved Contractors Scheme (ACS). It was now time to talk to Jeff about what he was going to bring to the party.
I asked him how he was settling in to his new role. Jeff said: โWell, six months into the job and having survived that … I met someone recently who had worked for NACOSS and he said that after about four months you begin to get the idea that you have got the job under control … after about eight months you will be pulling your hair out and after a year you will be banging your head against the wall thinking that you have not got anywhere. I havenโt found that but there is no doubt that there is a lot to do. The NSI has got a good reputation but we need to build upon that and be more customer focused and look at our processes and speed them up. We have just got a new IT system which is proving a bit of a challenge and as mentioned the NSI needs to be more customer friendly in the way it does business with its clients … which is one of my first concerns. So we are looking at our application process which we are going to streamline and make it easier and faster. We are also looking at our communications, we have not had a conference for the last seven years and it will be along the lines of change in the private security industry … as you know there is a lot of change going on. I went to the Counter Terrorism Exhibition at Olympia [in April] recently and met lots of old chums there and I thought, โYep, we have to get together to sort this outโ. I am quite focused on the civil protection side of life. When I came out of the Army five years ago I went to university and studied emergency planning and disaster management. I became very involved with an organisation called the ICPEM (Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management). We have just had our 2011 conference and the theme was โNational Security in an Age of Uncertaintyโ. We had some fantastic speakers. For instance Prof Sadie Creese, Director of e-Security and Head of the WMG Digital Programme at the International Digital Laboratories at the University of Warwick who talked on cyber-security and Keith Weston, QPM, Senior Research Fellow in Counter Terrorism at Cranfield University and formerly Head of the Police International Counter Terrorist Unit. There were other speakers and it was very interesting because this type of cyber-crime and threat is one of those growth areas that we cannot ignore. So those are my first priorities, but fire is another area where we have to grow our presence. There are lots of changes going on with the new fire risk assessment legislation coming in and the new BAFE emergency lighting models coming down the pipe. I think that fire needs a higher profile in the NSIโs arena.โ
We then went on to talk at length about the security systems sector and it the introduction of the Security Alliance. I explained that when JSIC (Joint Security Industry Council) was created it was an umbrella organisation on behalf of the entire profession and we appointed David Holt (CEO of NACOSS) to be the chairman at the time because he was new to the industry and did not have any baggage. I actually thought that it was like history repeating itself because having spoken to Jeff I felt that he would make a good chairman of the Security Alliance for all the same reasons that David Holt made a good chairman of JSIC. In my opinion I think that Jeff would be an ideal candidate. We talked for ages about the changes to the industry and Jeff went on to discuss the future within the NSI and the way that the companies are developing. Jeff remarked: โYou have to move with the times and look at the horizon to get on. Weโre coming up against inspected organisations that started off as intruder companies and have grown to increase their offer and transmogrified in to broader areas and a lot of them are saying … look, we have grown in to logistics, facilities management and other areas of business. We have three or four separate certified bodies that are inspecting us and what we want is just one to come along and do the whole lot.โ
Jeff discussed further the importance of communication and listening to the client. He explained that the NSI have a dormant company that was originally set up as a โone stop shopโ platform that he potentially finds quite exciting. Jeff stressed: โWe have got to preserve the NSIโs core business whilst looking at what else is needed out there that can cater for these multi-punctual companies so I have a chap doing a study at the moment looking into the security companies where the facilities management capabilities and the core areas are something that we can help with … and that is quite important. There are lots of companies out there and lots of variety. I come from a defence background and I think that the security profession can learn a lot from the way that โdefenceโ does its business. Also, I think that there is a blurring of the boundaries where defence and security does its business. Certainly in the eyes of the government, with their National Security Policy and their National Security Committee … itโs all rolled into one almost! I think we need to be more threat driven … look at other areas of security … such as marine security. We continued to chat a lot longer than the allocated time for the interview and it is clear that Jeff Little is going to go large when it comes to the NSI and security for the future.
About Jeff Little: He was born in 1955 in Glossop, a former mill town in the Peak District, just outside the National Park boundaries. Jeff has an older brother and sister. Before starting at the National Security Inspectorate he had taken the position of Business Development Director with Universal Engineering Company (Charlestown), a company specialising in the design and manufacture of components for safety critical environments such as defence.
