Bats in the dark, Smart cars and students cropped up on a visit to London SW15, writes Mark Rowe.
It was easy to feel relaxed, even enchanted, in the student world, though London stood outside the perimeter. I walked through the main, traffic-light controlled entrance to Roehampton University, collected my room keys at the gatehouse from the security staff, and noted the two elegantly dark Smart cars saying ‘security’ and a golf buggy parked outside. [Pictured: beside one of the security department’s Smart cars, security officers Lee Gerrish and Syd Leaney] Only a few students were abroad; I passed a couple walking hand in hand through the trees. It was indeed quite dark on campus, darker than the street (the Roehampton Lane A-road) beyond the perimeter and a new hospital and its car park over the road. On a mild, starry night, winking airliners were coming into land regularly, as Roehampton is on the Heathrow flight path. The only authority figure I could see was a man wearing a ‘security’ fluorescent jacket, doing a round of building checks. So certainly I perceived the place as safe. How to convince everyone – and they range from staff and students to their parents – that the place is safe? It was striking to read the latest security report on the university’s website, that went into statistical detail to show how safe the place is, safer than the borough it’s in (Wandsworth). But are statistics enough to change people’s perceptions?!
Paul Markham-James is Roehampton’s head of security. About half his time is given to fire and other systems, 40 per cent to security and ten per cent to transport. I asked him about the Smart cars, as Syd had ferried me in one to the offices of Property and Facilities Management, where he’s based. Also, I recalled that transport – to be exact, officers riding bicycles on patrol – cropped up in my summer 2009 visit to Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), at Mile End in E1, where he worked previously. He crossed London to his present job in January 2010. “We toyed with the electric vehicle idea, but the capital outlay was just horrendous. I suppose it [the two-seater Smart cars] is a fall-back position. If we can’t do electric, we need to perhaps do the next best thing, and that is look at more economic type vehicles.” (As for whether officers should or want to patrol by bicycle, SW15 is hillier than flat Mile End.)
Paul has one of four desks in a room on the top floor of Mount Clare, a Georgian stately building. Like some other Roehampton property, it has classical columns and fireplaces, chandeliers for your light fittings, and spiral staircases. The site has more modern buildings – a mix, mainly because the university is made up of several century-old or more colleges. Hence the facilities and security systems are – as at hospitals and other spread-out sites – varied, shall we say. Another factor particular to the public sector, not just Roehampton or unis; in the basement sit the ‘green team’, staff that (with nationally-recognised success) consider the environmental effect of things. As Paul said, he could (for security purposes) light the campus like Wembley stadium! That might make students out at night feel safer (and Paul mentioned that three-quarters of Roehampton’s students are female). But what of light pollution, the ‘green impact’? Roehampton’s wildlife on the edge of built-up London – and it was odd to look out of Paul’s window to see only greenery, of Richmond Park – includes bats, which require darkness to thrive. As elsewhere, security has to be a balancing act – with for example Roehampton’s beauty, a selling point, if you like. To be a good neighbour, I suggested, Paul agreed. I mentioned that one of the invited speakers at the Association of University Chief Security Officers’ 2011 annual conference was from the National Union of Students, speaking on student safety. Students want to be safe. Paul asked: are they students, or customers? Again, as in other sectors, heads of security in universities are adapting, as unis are in general, to a change in culture. Once, a university interviewed potential students. Now if anything it’s the other way around. “We have to raise our game,” Paul said – meaning not that Roehampton or anywhere else is falling short, but that students are paying for a service – and the Coalition Government has proposed a rise in course fees. “And we have to deliver, absolutely. We are in competition with everyone around us, all London universities.” That students are as crime-free as you can reasonably expect – and that the young people feel safe, not necessarily the same thing – are among the factors that students (and their parents?!) may weigh up when choosing a uni, or whether to stay the course.
Security has to work with the grain of any institution. Roehampton prides itself on its colleges. As Roehampton is so new – it dates from 2004 – its CCTV and access control grew separately. Paul wants to provide a consistent service across the campuses and is looking to centralise systems. The access control product used is Salto Systems’, installed by SW11-based Ansador. On the uni’s heritage buildings, the door fittings have to be brass. As for CCTV, Paul is looking to merge college systems into one operating system, ‘which will be testing’. The guardforce of 28 is in-house, and SIA-badged, ‘despite the uncertainty, we maintain that; because I am sure there will be a fall-back position even if in years to come the SIA fails to exist, I am sure there will be some body that manages it [licensing]. And it’s not just about the badge, the piece of plastic, it’s the training, it’s the fact that they have recognised training and they are rewarded for that.” And students – or shall we call them customers?! – do recognise the SIA badge, Paul suggested, for example as worn by door staff. Students may go for a drink at their college, then to the main Roehampton Student Union (RSU) bar, and then maybe go to a venue in London and return at dawn. The Roehampton security staff’s terms and conditions require them to be first aid-trained. Calls to the uni security number (3333) may be for trips, or students who have had too much to drink, or students who have had too much to drink and tripped. The security officer will assess whether to call an ambulance or deal with it himself. Paul described the RSU as active and putting on a lot of events. The RSU will (the same as some other unis) hire its own contract event security, while liaising with the in-house security. Likewise many unis are keen to run conferences and other events – from weddings to film sets – during the student vacations. In past years the uni has hosted major pop music acts Calvin Harris and the Sugababes. Another balancing act for security is with English Heritage, to make sure any electronic security equipment is in keeping with listed buildings. As for CCTV, Paul said: “I think the jury is still out on CCTV, whether people want it or don’t want it.” While he could not think of a university that has taken cameras out entirely, students – particularly at Roehampton those taking human rights and related humanities courses – are alive to the privacy implications. Hence CCTV at academic buildings, campus entrances (which might be of use if that case of the student bedroom theft progressed) and car parks, but not at accommodation, though there are physical security measures particularly at ground floor study rooms, to protect against intruders.
As for where security sits in the organisation, whereas at QMUL hard and soft services were separate, at Roehampton, hard and soft services are inside the same PFM (Property and Facilities Management) department. Dr Ghazwa Alwani-Starr is director. As for the definition of hard and soft, think hardware and software – hard is to do with the fabric of a building, soft more about cleaning, catering and security, and monitoring of contractors. Under security – going by the ‘studentzone’ part of the uni’s website – comes drugs and alcohol policy; accident reporting, students or staff applying for a parking permit, even barbecue booking (the online form warns that ‘the security service reserves the right to extinguish or stop the BBQ if safety is compromised’). As the various parts of PFM are based in the same room, Paul and colleagues can easily give and take views on projects, rather than security or some other FM service being informed at the last minute. Paul can be ordering trousers one minute and talking about security strategy the next. He can be in the office at 6.30am, having a coffee, reading emails, when a report of a crime comes in that will demand his attention. And as for a day in the life of a security officer? General patrols, looking after fire activations (young people anywhere may set off the fire alarm as a lark), key-holding, monitoring alarms. “They are very much a front line service out of hours, when the welfare service have gone home and only the security officer is on duty.” And as elsewhere the security officer does customer service meeting and greeting; a varied shift. Paul added that not many university security officers leave, because the work is more varied than a static job in a warehouse or building site. “The security officers are more than security officers. I think the jury is still out what we should be calling security officers.” Again, Paul spoke in terms of a balance – security being the figure of authority that people may look to at a time of need; on the other hand, the officer has to be approachable, like the porter or caretaker of old, if the student has locked himself out. Security as part of FM is, at least on the uni’s organisational chart, separate from ‘student services’. On the ground, any college and uni’s security officers have a welfare side to their jobs. A campus is the size of a small town and like a town houses people of all ages and functions. At Roehampton one of the colleges, Digby Stuart, for example has a Roman Catholic history and still has a Society of the Sacred Heart community of sisters.
I talked to Dr Jonathan Horner, environmental manager, on the ‘green impact’. As for lighting of paths, he confirmed that besides safety there’s energy-efficiency and the bats to consider (one college having ‘bat-boxes’ to house them). “Bio-diversity is something we are very proud of at Roehampton University.” Rather than globe-shaped lights that send light in every direction, the uni is looking to fit Thorlux’ leaf-like fittings, that send light only downwards. You can have outside lighting that’s dim, until people pass by. Also planned are more cycle shelters. Theft of cycles on campus is not a massive problem. Cycling is to be encouraged in London (think of the Mayor of London’s ‘Boris bikes’) but the shelters have to be of a sort and in a place where cyclists want to use them, such as near the building entrance the cyclist wants to go in. Convenience can also suit security, because a cycle shelter near an entry will mean passers-by spot anyone suspicious (‘natural surveillance’ in the crime prevention jargon).
In the second-floor welfare office, Paul Markham-James sat at a round table with two student welfare staff. Paul had called to talk about a man whose photo and student details were on a print-out on the table. Leaving aside the ins and outs of why the young man of the print-out was on the table, the nub of the meeting between Paul and the two welfare women was to discuss whether they were dealing with a reported crime, that might call for the police, or merely not very funny student high jinks. That case – and Paul and the welfare staff left it that they would each seek more details – did show how a university is not like other workplaces, a student is not like a nurse or a secretary, if some report of wrong-doing comes to the head of security. Students may be mature enough to stay out until dawn, but they may phone a parent if they have a mishap. No matter that a student may get themselves into trouble by acting thoughtlessly, even irresponsibly about their personal security. How many times has it been said, student days are the time to make your mistakes?! When you are free.
To sum up, Roehampton like other unis stresses that it’s welcoming, a place of learning – ‘open spaces, open minds’, is its slogan. It’s the task of security – and takes up several hours of the 24 – to open and lock and check doors, and respond to alarms. As anywhere else, a security service reflects the institution it serves. Paul summed up: “I want to be considered as running the best university security service in the country. I want other universities to look at Roehampton and say, ‘I want security like that’. I want our students and staff to look at my service it is excellent value for money. We understand our purpose of the well-being of all who use Roehampton University. Ultimately I want all to feel safe using Roehampton and we will deliver.”
For more about the security at Roehampton, visit the ‘studentzone’ part of www. roehampton.ac.uk and view among other things the street safety advice and ‘security service plan’ that ties in with what the uni overall seeks to offer.
