A relatively small guarding company is one of the main players in a guard registration scheme on one of the main business parks in the UK.
Trafford Guardsafe has the backing of Greater Manchester Police and Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council. Guards applying for registration are vetted and attend an approved SITO training course. When guards pass, they are registered with the local authority and get an ID badge and certificate. Police, local authority, SITO and BSIA speakers launched the voluntary scheme at Old Trafford, the home of Lancashire county cricket, in October. On the guarding side of this scheme, the partner is not one of the big industry names but Noble Security, a Widnes-based firm with 80 staff. The partners are George Mensah and Geoff Deane. When asked why he and not one of the ?big boys? was behind the scheme, George Mensah told Professional Security how the company has a bee in its bonnet about standards. Noble are members of IPSA, JSIC and the BSIA, a SITO-approved NVQ assessment centre, are Investors in People, and have ISO 9002 accreditation. George explained why the firm, with a turnover today of just over ล1m a year, went down the accreditation route: ?We were going out to get work and we were undercut by the little boys and the big boys – the big boys because they can work in volume. We couldn?t get in there. And at the lower end of the market you had your gangster element who weren?t doing vetting and not paying national insurance and tax. We were too big to be small and we were too small to be big.? Both George and Geoff have guarding backgrounds, having worked up from guard level. Another reason why one of the big firms was not behind the scheme, George added, was because they are not interested. He added: ?We get invited to a BSIA golf day, but we don?t want to go to a golf day, because we are working with the Greater Manchester Police, trying to reduce the crime where we are working. We don?t drive flashy cars. We have got a modest operation but it?s a proper one.? The private security industry can take on some current police tasks such as wide load escorts, George added. ?We have highly skilled employees who can help with the non-core duties of the police.? While the security industry was unregulated, the police did not want to let security firms have such tasks, he said.
