A ‘thought leadership’ event in Leeds aired some of the questions around business risk, security and protection, from cybercrime, terrorism and fraud to counterfeiting.
John Ebo of Leeds City Centre Management and Business Against Crime In Leeds (BACIL) asked whether business crime was seen as victimless, and a secondary priority; not taken as seriously by the police. The panel was: West Yorkshire Police deputy chief constable David Crompton; Robert Wardle, consultant at LA Piper, from 2003 to 2008 head of the Serious Fraud Office; Bruce Mann, the civil servant who is head of Civil Contingencies Secretariat, British Cabinet Office; John Haddon (Leader of Security Consulting, Arup); and Prof Richard Williams, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Enterprise Knowledge Transfer at the University of Leeds. The venue was the The Royal Armouries Museum in regenerated Leeds city centre, and the able event chairman was Matthew Amroliwala, BBC News 24 presenter.
Shoplifting
David Crompton pointed to the ‘sheer volume of things like shoplifting’, that meant such crimes were sometimes dealt with ‘a bit faster than we might like to’. He added: “We do operate with a hierarchy of priorities. I have been made aware of occasions where we have given specific advice to retail premises at a relatively basic level which would cut the amount of crime at those premises, and for one reason or another, commercial, reputational, it hasn’t been taken. And that absorbs police resources; something about that feels wrong to me, because that time can be spent doing other things for other people.” Kevin Doherty of TD Waterhouse queried if there were enough resources to combat business crime. David Crompton answered: “If we were better resourced, we would put more resources into not only business crime but other crime. Inevitably within the resources we have got we can devote more of it specifically to business crime but that’s resources we take away from somebody else; these are difficult decisions.” And in answer to a question from David Ransom of South Yorkshire-based People United Against Crime, David Crompton got a laugh from the audience when he said if it were that easy to set a target for business crime – by defining what it was – the police would have by now, ‘because we have plenty of targets!’
Fraud difficulty
Robert Wardle spoke of businesses having responsibility, to report fraud for example, though businesses might not want to out of embarrassment. He suggested that the new NFSA [National Fraud Strategic Authority, trying to pull together UK public and private sector work against fraud] was having difficulty getting businesses to tell them what their fraud loss was. He added: “Yes, it must be taken seriously by the police and the authorities; but it has also got to be taken seriously by businesses; they have to co-operate and report.” Earlier, Professional Security put a question from the floor: what was of most concern to each of the panel? The replies were wide: Robert Wardle spoke of fraud, and confidence (or lack of) in financial institutions; Prof Williams, the stealing of knowledge; John Haddon, speaking the week before the Mexican swine flu made the news, raised pandemics. He suggested that private business still put them in the ‘too difficult’ category.
Inevitably, the recession got a mention. Robert Wardle spoke of frauds such as Madoff that were not picked up the regulators and auditors. “People have woken up to the fact that there has to be change at the top. I think people are now angry, because they can see the effect of fraud, of economic crime, as well as economic incompetence, which outweighs the economic crime, I fear.” He hoped that if nothing else as a result of the recession, we will see better corporate governance. David Crompton pointed out that his force has the largest anti-fraud unit outside London. He warned of firms feeling the squeeze and ‘now tempted to do business with partners who aren’t quite as reputable as we would all like; that therefore increases the risk of something going wrong and lo and behold, they can become victims of fraud’.
Checklist
Stephen Seymour of Crossgates Shopping Centre in Leeds said there was no central document covering designing-in anti-terrorism measures, and public space management. John Haddon said there was an enormous amount of information available; guidance from CPNI (Centre for the Protection of National Infastructure, www.cpni.gov.uk) for instance. Haddon is a member of the British Council of Offices Security Committee; the BCO is updating its security advice. He warned against a checklist that might not be relevant to your location. “The most important thing you can do is carry out a threat and risk assessment, and consult the expert, be they government or private industry.” David Crompton spoke of his force’s seven ALOs (architectural liaison officers) that can advise on building protection and urged businesses to make contact at the planning stage, so that measures are built in to minimise risk.
As for counterfeits, John Haddon spoke of people coming home from holiday abroad with a tan and a fake Gucci and Rolex, ‘and feeling they have done well. There needs to be some shame attached to buying counterfeit goods.” He likened it to drinking and driving, which was once common but thanks to a cultural change has become shameful.
Civic bodies in other regions and cities do work on business crime – Liverpool Chamber of Commerce has a Business Crime Direct arm, for instance, whose work on helping taxis have in-car CCTV was featured in the May issue of Professional Security Magazine. Yet the Marketing Leeds (motto – Live it, Love it) event was of interest for bringing together a panel of security and risk people, mainly from Leeds and region – such as the schools security consultant and adviser John Archbold; David Ransom of People United Against Crime; Mike Procter from consultant engineers WYG Group; Howard Fowler of Network Securities UK; Douglas Reeman of London Clubs Management; and forensic accountants and others from audit firms such as BDO Stoy Hayward based in Leeds – which can claim to be the biggest centre for such work outside London.
Chris Tully of DLA Piper put it to the panel that given the globalisation of business, how could you mitigate the risk of loss of intellectual property? Prof Williams said: “It’s a very real fact that a lot of innovation that’s been developed in Leeds and the region is coming through small companies that work in a global market and a lot of added value comes from partners; and together you build a new product or service. The answer is relatively simple to say and harder to achieve; ensuring the people you work with are trusted and share your values. The question is how you develop those relations.” While a firm can insure against abuse of a patent, the cost may be beyond a small business. Bruce Mann spoke of electronic attack: some by 14-year-olds in a bedroom, some by organised crime; some, commercial espionage; some by states. “This is something probably not getting the attention it deserves.”
David Hogg of the University of Leeds asked about CCTV, which then came in for some stick. David Crompton began by saying: “It would be good to get everybody up to the 20th century because we still encounter rather grainy footage and that doesn’t make life any easier.” He raised the possibility that if software developed, why not have facial recognition so that if someone was wanted by police and was picked up by town centre CCTV, the police could be notified. John Haddon made the point that such software would require a huge database. He admitted to being a sceptic about CCTV. “I always ask clients , well, why do you think a CCTV system will solve your problem? All too often CCTV is thought to be a panacea to whatever problems you have got; I don’t think there’s enough thought about what you hope to achieve.” He had doubts about how much of a deterrent CCTV is. Can CCTV interdict criminals? That is, do you have operational procedures so that if you see a miscreant on camera, will they be apprehended before they go?
Martin Dean of Leeds Initiative asked if the British government had over-hyped the threat of terrorism. The panel disagreed. David Crompton said he was working in Manchester in 1996, the year of the Arndale Centre IRA bomb. Damage to business was massive; but no-one was seriously hurt. “The nature of the threat has now changed,” he said. “There are no warnings. We are dealing with a threat much harder to combat; you may expect a police officer to say that, but no, it hasn’t been over-hyped.” Similarly Bruce Mann spoke of a ‘constant relentless desire to target the UK’ by jihadists. “For businesses I would say: focus on the consequences.” By that he meant: whether you lose electricity because terrorists target a sub-station or there’s simply a fault; can you cope without electricity? Here he quoted the National Risk Register, that you can download via www.resilience.gov.uk. Haddon, too, spoke of a ‘totally different terrorism’: “The one thing you can almost be certain of is that the exact scenario you plan for will not happen. All you can hope is that by carrying out risk assessment, your assets, processes, are sufficiently robust that they can deal with any scenario that is thrown at them.” The panel was lukewarm on a USA-style department of homeland security, which Bruce Mann likened to a ‘colossal elephant’.
At the end each of the panel summed up, to give the audience things to take away. John Haddon stressed threat and risk assessment: “Define your risk appetite.” Prof Williams spoke of IT risks, of people increasingly trying to get into your systems.
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