A panel of heads of retail security sparked debate at the British Retail Consortium crime conference about what retail and police ought to do.
The panel: Ian Harley, group security adviser, Argos Group, a former Metropolitan Police man who was head of security at Argos from 1988 to 2004; Chris Holland, head of retail loss prevention at Sainsburyโs, formerly in the police and Army and at Superdrug, B&Q and Marks & Spencer; and Steve Frame, head of profit protection at M & S, who after Met service has been in retail for ten years.
Violence
First question: violence – is it increasing? Chris Holland said: โYes; I think there is a significant element of under-reporting there … we have an environment where we are opening later, where we are chasing sales at a competitive margin and I would ask everybody where you can get products that you could sell to fund a dependency habit. So I think we will see crimes of violence increasing.โ Already here was the difference between the strictly retail and the policing agenda; retailers feeling they have to be open for business, and police querying if retailers need to put produce so enticingly on display. Chris Holland did add later that workplace violence does not happen in the board room, but to a 21-year-old mum, at 9pm: โThe fact that you have walked from the street through a retailerโs door seems to change police perception of how serious violence isโ – that is, he suggested that police treated violence in store as less serious that on a street. Mainly, Chris Holland added, Sainsburyโs uses guards, which works, โbecause they do displace the problem, but that is only the start of itโ.
Identity theft
Ian Harley, answering a question about staff fraud, said: โStaff theft and fraud is nothing new – manipulation of process, internal collusion – but it is now compounded by identity theft and identity problems generally; and you have dishonest employees being kicked out under disciplinary process and wandering around and doing the same elsewhere; the situation is probably getting worse because of those factors.โ He added that Argos is starting to use data mining, for prompt deploying of resources to such problems: โThe company adopts a zero tolerance attitude; you steal a penny, you steal £5,000, you will be referred to the police.โ Besides encouraging whistle-blowing – Ian Harley was a founder of UK Crimestoppers – his firm operates a civil recovery scheme. Steve Frame added: โI wish I had some good news.โ M & S is looking into investing further in product protection; looking into the Shopwatch scheme; and CCTV operator training, and trying to take more intelligence-led decisions in loss prevention.
Sharing data?
In reply to a question from the floor – does Argos share data about references, so that another retailer does not give a job to a known fraudster – Ian Harley answered that the first thing the firm tries to do is not re-employ the person already sacked – which provoked a wry chuckle from the audience. He added that Argos is looking, with the Met, at sharing information, the view perhaps being that someone seeking a new job with a stolen or new identity does not really exist and does not have human rights protection. Chris Holland admitted that the major retailers do not talk to each other about dismissed staff; a cycle that needed to be broken, he suggested.
Penalty tickets
The panel gave short shrift to the fixed penalty notices, hailed earlier in the conference by Home Office Minister Hazel Blears. Steve Frame did not think the present sanctions were a deterrent, likening the penalty fines to โan £80 traffic fineโ. Taking up this theme, Ian Harley of Argos said: โWe donโt accept that theft can be made into a parking offence and we will never give our authority to police to issue tickets.โ He spoke of commercial burglary, drive-away thefts from food and petrol retail, by known criminals, but a police force will not take responsibility of investigating such gangs. Chris Holland, on the topic of police taking on cases of staff fraud, said he was bothered by what West Midlands Police Deputy Chief Constable Chris Sims had said. Chris Holland said: โI believe we [Sainsburyโs] are doing more than enough and in fact I think we have all learned that the only way we are going to get it [a case of staff fraud] on to the table is to do the investigation for them [police] and if we can produce a positive, they will take it.โ
Police defence
From the floor, several police officers in the audience sought to defend the police. Ian Curtis, in Bournemouth, took the attack to the panel when he said two of the three retailers on the platform had stores in Bournemouth; but training in statement-taking and radio procedures had been cancelled for lack of retailer interest. Ian Curtis added that he would not arrange another training day until stores came to him. Chris Holland countered by asking if it was his job to police society; yes, we need to train our staff, he said, but our core service is retail, and Sainsburyโs was taking witness statements and doing investigations according to PACE rules. Ian Harley made the point that the police were taking the brunt of disillusionment with the criminal justice system; and suggested that Ian Curtis contact the retailersโ head offices. Sgt Paul Valentine said that Sainsburyโs would not pay £400 to join the retail crime partnership in Northamptonshire, an attitude, he suggested, mirrored from the top down. Do retailers do all they can to help themselves? he asked. Chris Holland replied with the story of being ready to sign off £100,000 (over five years) to a town centre partnership for a car park CCTV camera with a view to reporting any incidents of violence, or anti-social behaviour. The retailer however has not had one phone call; it prompted Chris Holland to say: โWe need to look at it from a cost perspective.โ Terry Atkinson, security manager for the MetroCentre at Gateshead, spoke of how the shopping mallโs security team and Northumbria Police officers did the security work, rather than the retail units, who needed to get their act together, he suggested. Ian Harley said he had sympathy with that, while pointing to sometimes high turnover of retail staff. Chris Holland said that Sainsburyโs have thrown their weight behind Action Against Business Crime.
2010 scene
Final question for the panel: how did they see the retail crime scene in 2010? Ian Harley spoke of more and more sales on the internet and by telephone – and fraud by organised crime and terror groups was already in that area: โThat will put at risk not just cash and stock, but the reliability of information, access to systems, and reputation of brand. If for example somebody hacked into the Argos system and put on to the internet the personal details of say 5,000 customersโ credit cards, that would finish our business tomorrow. Reputational damage to business and brand – itโs far more than anything else we have been talking about; and that is what we are likely to face.โ Steve Frame spoke of likely reduced margins and stretched resources – hence a need for measured efficiencies and improvements on how loss prevention people spent their time. Also on the horizon were SIA licensing and integration of technology. He said: โCertainly we are going to look at investing quite a bit of money this year and next year to give us those efficiencies. Operationally, I see integrated solutions as being key to our future.โ
MetroCentre
One bright note came from Sgt Alan Parks, based at the MetroCentre, who described how thanks to a police and shopping centre partnership, the mall has had no cars stolen from its car parks this year so far, and eight broken into, compared with perhaps hundreds in previous years. The reason for such success: โI am lucky to be part of a very good partnership.โ The panel ended as it started, though, with the differing agendas of police and pure retail. Sgt Parks made the point that organised crime was linked to refund fraud – that is, criminals getting refunds for stolen goods returned to a store. That could be managed easily, Sgt Parks added, by a change in refund policy by retailers – namely, that if you do not have a receipt, you do not have a refund. Ian Harley put the retailerโs point of view; that a store manager might be confronted with a screaming customer demanding a refund. The change in refund policy that Sgt Parks suggested would not happen, Ian Harley added, unless all retailers did it.
At lunch, a word with two senior executives at the merged retail security officer company, formed after Antec Security bought Frances Clarke in the summer.
First, commiserations with Steve Haskins, former MD of Frances Clarke, over Whitehaven rugby league teamโs loss to Castleford in the division one grand final – Steve played for the Cumbrian club in the 1960s. French-born Olivier Cavaliere, chief executive of Antec Security – its parent company has changed corporate identity to AFC Group – made the point that a judge or courts representative should have been invited as a speaker, to make their case – because police and retail alike would have issues to put to someone from the courts system. p
Though Chip and PIN was hailed at the conference, fraud in retail is still out there, the event heard.
Organised gangs feel comfortable about migrating towards โcard not presentโ (CNP) fraud, warned Jason Kempton of the UK payments association APACS. CNP is now the largest type of credit card fraud, he said; and internet fraud formed more than three-quarters of CNP fraud in 2004. Retail sectors at risk of CNP fraud include mail order houses; betting firms; airlines and travel agents; and computer services firms, Mr Kempton said. He noted a sharp increase in the number of attacks directed at e-banking customers in the UK, such as phishing (seeking peopleโs personal details, to steal money and identities) and fake websites. In other words, criminal gangs will operate wherever a good return on investment can be achieved. p
Visit www.cardwatch.org.uk
Other speakers were Royston Holmes, European Business Development Director, in the emerging technologies part of Tyco Fire and Security (ADT); and Mike Schuck, the former 32-year Met Police man now chief executive of Action Against Business Crime. He described how AABC is made up of 150 business crime partnerships – most members in most partnerships being small and independent retailers. AABC has the aim in four yearsโ time of a total of 400 partnerships. He answered what he called the โold chestnutโ of town centre partnerships displacing crime elsewhere; partnerships, he said, are about raising the risk to anonymous criminals, by sharing offendersโ photos among members, and adding it to CCTV and intelligence about offender movements. The aim: to reduce the opportunity for crime, by banning known offenders, not only in retail but hospitals, libraries (a target for DVD thieves) and leisure centres and pubs and clubs. AABCโs aim is to bring into partnerships car parks, industrial and business parks, airports – any place of business.p
Visit www.businesscrime.org.uk
Businesses are in the front line of the global threat from terrorism, Richard Flynn, of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, told the conference.
There are new and novel methods of attack, Richard Flynn said, seeking mass casualties. Despite press talk of chemical threats, bombs and guns are still the terror weapons of choice – being relatively easy to obtain, he said. โVehicle bombs are still the most devastating form of attack. In our security we need to think about keeping vehicles away from people.โ Appropriately, the event venue – the Victoria Plaza Hotel – was over the road from the home of writer Joseph Conrad, whose novels included The Secret Agent, about anarchist bomb-makers. Speaking of the July 7 attacks, Richard Flynn said: โPeople think it isnโt going to happen to them; it [an attack] could be anywhere in the country and other cities in the UK need to be prepared.โ It is not all gloom, though; he spoke of how, in a perverse way, the excellent way that London and the emergency services responded to 7-7 raised the cityโs profile as a safe and resilient place, which was good for Londonโs business reputation – and London in a global market is in competition with, say, Stuttgart or Tokyo.
Loss after terror
He described the three types of loss after a terrorist attack: the immediate and direct cost of putting things right, such as replacing windows, and cleaning the place – staff being keen to get back to normal, showing a โDunkirk spiritโ. Next, for up to six months, comes the medium-term consequences of disrupted business. At around six months, he suggested, the impact of any disaster hits staff, psychologically, and staff may call in sick, or resign – something for business planners to think about, Richard Flynn said. Finally come the longer-term losses, through loss of reputation and customer confidence: if it is thought that an employer could have done something, but did not, that is corrosive and it is difficult to rebuild sales, Richard Flynn added.
โA different menaceโ
โWe are dealing with a very different menace from Irish terrorism,โ he said; Irish terrorists, for instance, were not interested in killing large numbers of people, for political reasons, he said. A counter-terrorism strategy, he went on, would also protect against theft – thanks to visual deterrents to criminals and terrorists. Business plans do not need to be complicated, he added; but you should ask โwhat ifโ questions, such as โwhat if power goes from your building tomorrowโ? โEven if you are confident you have good security measures in place, your Achilles heel may not be in your company, but the commercial relations you have with others. Terrorists are going to disrupt supply chains … A little bit of planning and thinking now will really pay dividends when something major happens; it could be terrorism, a power outage, avian flu, whatever.โ Whatever the size of your organisation, your IT is another potential Achilles heel, he added. He spoke of Project Griffin, whereby security officers get a one-day course in terrorism awareness, with topics including explosives; and how security staff can assist in keeping cordons after an incident. Richard Flynn described how security guards on July 7, wearing Griffin tabbards, staffed cordons, and freed police officers for other tasks. Summing up, Richard Flynn warned that securing your business from terror was not a short haul; we did not know when the next attack was going to be; and it was a question of not if but when. p
About the speaker: Richard Flynn, a detective sergeant in the NaCTSO, has responsibility for business security and resilience (a term for coping with a terror or other catastrophe).
Look to future
The event rounded off with a look to the future, by Peter Kaye, head of security at John Lewis Partnership.
Having joined the retailer in October 2004, he is, he admitted, โa relative new boy to retailโ. He joined the RAF Regiment in 1978; and had several appointments in the Ministry of Defence. Leaving the ministry in 2002, he became security adviser to the Bank of England. He is a former vice-chairman of the UK chapter of ASIS, and is a member of The Security Institute. He is a graduate of the Joint Services Command and Staff Collegeโs advanced command and staff course, having a masters degree in strategic studies from Kingโs College London. He gave an appropriately strategic view of business protection, speaking in terms of risk, in anticipating behaviour of people in a place, when they are tempted – perhaps to buy merchandise, perhaps to steal. Risk-taking, he pointed out, is healthy if it maintains profit margins and is good for sales. As for people, we all recruit risk, he said; it is increasingly difficult to know who people are; so how to mitigate this risk? As for technology, he sid: โWe have yet to see the real application of CCTV, in my view.โ By that he meant that he saw potential for CCTV software, to recognise human behaviours, to detect bad behaviour. He described a โvisionโ – while not wanting to gild the lily, he said – โAn environment in which partners, customers and profit are protected from identified risks.โ The mission: to create it! This was not mere theory, though, Peter Kaye alert to the wider needs of the company – in John Lewisโ case, a partnership co-owned by staff, as the name of the business suggests. Protecting the business, he said, is everyoneโs business; but so is promoting sales. Risk management is part of the culture; and itโs about measuring the value added to the bottom line. For instance, he quoted Prof Martin Gill on how attentive staff are important for deterring offenders – which for retail should be a complete no-brainer, Peter Kaye commented. Dealing with crime is a police matter, he argued, while it is for the retailer to manage risk – for instance, spending time on investigations on areas of the greatest potential return first. Tools – such as data mining at electronic points of sale – give a measurable return on investment.
