Mark Harding, of event security contract firm Showsec, was in conversation at the International Sports Security Summit in London in January.
On day two of the event at the QE2 conference centre at Westminster, he did a question and answer session with Kevin Roberts of event organisers Rushmans. <br><br>As for the Private Security Industry Act 2001, Mark Harding said that even at the launch the people representing the PSIA were from door supervision and static guarding, ‘and it is fair to say that the event indsutry and the sport industry were very much overlooked. It wasn’t until we started lobbying ministers and MPs through official channels [the UKCMA, UK Crowd Management Association] that they realised the consequences’. He added: "I want to support the SIA all the way, but when an organisation begins, it doesn’t have a vast experience required to implement legislation and to make it operationally successful." What he called uncertain interpretation of SIA licensing made it difficult for event companies to do strategic planning, he added. <br><br>Put another way, what are the stewarding staff at a sporting or other event doing – safety or security work. Or as Mark Harding put it; staff at a crowd barrier are there to stop people getting on to the stage; or protecting the health and safety of the public, in case of for example dehydration. And here, according to Mark Harding, the legislation [the PSIA 2001] is very grey, and needed intrepretation from the SIA. Understandably, the SIA did not want to give the lead interpretation, Mark Harding went on.
Showsec has a sister company in the Netherlands; there the security sector is licenced by company. Showsec had to draw on staff from those sister firms in the Netherlands, Germany and Northern Ireland, to meet the Manchester Commonwealth Games contract in 2002. As those Games approached, Mark Harding admitted, it became clear that the resources the company had allocated to the Games were not sufficient. As for 2012 he said: "I am not trying to scaremonger for the Olympic Games, but it is important to realies there are finite resources out there." One company might not be large enough for all the security work – and as Mark Harding said to the audience earlier, a contractor must continue to sustain its other business. But if there is more than one (security) contractor used by the London Games, then communication and co-ordination becomes important, Mark Harding added. He pointed to staff learning as a most important issue: "In the past people have drifted into the [events] industry rather than had a career path." Showsec has worked with Buckinghamshire Chilterns on a foundation degree. Mark Harding called for a career structure, from steward or security officer level via qualifications and expertise – whether in manned guarding or backstage work or personal protection – to supervisor and manager level and up. Sixteen out of 28 Showsec managers have degrees, Mark Harding reported. Kevin Roberts asked Mark Harding finally if clients in the sports sector place enough weight on the service provided – in other words, are they prepared to pay for security – as a career rather than a fill-in job for someone?
Among Showsec’s contract work is for Manchester City FC at the City of Manchester Stadium (one of the 2002 Commonwealth Games venues). Yet of the 92 Football League clubs, there are very few that Showsec would work with, ‘because of the financial situation’, Mark Harding said, suggesting that only football clubs at the top of the range will invest in people.
In a coffee break, Professional Security Magazine spoke to David Evans, who as featured in the January print issue has retired from Legion Security as MD and become the 2012 Olympics project director for the British Security Industry Association. The effect of the London Olympics on private security is going to be massive, he said; and before 2012. Among other things, he suggested the prospect of training 12 and 13-year-olds who will become security officers by 2012. The sheer size of the Olympics offers opportunities; for instance, a guarding contractor might have enough if it had a contract to guard, say, the BBC. David Evans spoke also of how he was impressed with the Metropolitan Police’s work towards securing the Games. More responsibility was being given to private security, he added, not thinkable ten years ago.
