What to do in a flood, fire, terror attack or other incident? The Association of University Chief Security Officers (AUCSO) has brought out a guide. The woman behind the project spoke to Mark Rowe.
This was no mere academic exercise for Bernadette (Bernie) Duncan, head of security at City University London. A fire in 2001 partly destroyed City’s College Building, which only re-opened in 2006. Bernie says: "A lot of the time we are victims of an emergency, but also we are the responders, because we have a community of people, which can be anything from 5000 up to 35000 for a large campus. And you also have students who live on campus, so we [the universities] are like a mini-local authority, in a way. So we have to provide a response, but the victims are often part of our community as well." That is the difference between higher education and for example a retail park, where after a bomb alert or a utility or IT failure, or whatever, the workers can simply be sent home and rung up when it’s time to come in again. But if the risk of a communicable disease means a university has to close a building, what if it’s the home of hundreds of students?! "We don’t actually plan for all the different types of scenario, but we are planning for the consequences of a major emergency and hopefully this guidance," she says, referring to the ring binder that has gone to UK university vice-chancellors and principals, "will give people the confidence to write a framework or specialised plan, because each university is unique." Risks depend on whether the campus is urban, suburban, green-field, and what the institution’s governance structure is. Bernie has been invited to the UUK (Universities UK) conference in September, to speak to vice-chancellors. "No pressure there then," I said, and we laughed. <br><br>I asked about the AUCSO guide’s wider use, to non-university Professional Security readers. Bernie spoke of hospitals, public libraries, and anywhere with large public areas, where you may secure particular buildings, but the public may have the right of access to a site. Hospitals, similarly, have their own contingency plans to look after staff and patients. Planning is one thing, testing another. At the risk of showing ignorance, do you need to carry out an exercise? "Yes," Bernie replied. "First you need to do risk assessments; then compile a corporate risk register. It can be very generalised, like ‘flooding, because you are near a river’. Or, very specific; for example, if you have a hazardous area like a chemistry laboratory; or you have something out of your control, like a tsunami." The emergency can be not obvious at first sight; what if a disaster in Asia means that some of your foreign students won’t be able to attend next year, leaving a hole in the uni finances? In other words, what are the higher risks, and how to minimise their impact? "Once you have identified them, you write your plan, to address these risks, and in the planning process you have to involve the people you would expect to be part of the response. These people need to get together to discuss and form the plan; and once you have a plan, you have to test it." That can be a table-top exercise, first; then something more for real, to get people on the ground, physically doing things. If your plan says you can run your response from room X with so many telephones, TV screens and internet connection, are those things there?! "And if you do a full-scale exercise, you would then include external players as well: the emergency services, and the local authority." All this can take a year or two; it can depend whether there is a full-time emergency manager, or if people are doing it as part of another job. "And then you go back to the beginning again," she laughs, "it’s a continuous cycle of review, planning and rehearsing." She adds that she does not like the word test, which implies someone gives marks out of ten. The aim, rather, is to rehearse, that things are truly in place. Bernie warns that when you ask especially senior managers to get involved, freeing up their diary time can be difficult, ‘so you have to try to get something in the diary quite well in advance, and get people committed to it’. And, she says, make it enjoyable, while putting attenders under a little bit of pressure. At the end of the day, draw up learning points, and feed back into the review process. <br><br>Whether it’s two students having a fight, or a fire alarm going off in a hall of residence kitchen, Security generally are the first to respond. Out of hours, especially, for the first 15 or 30 minutes Security are there at the scene before a fire engine, ambulance crew or whoever. Yes, security staff are trained to deal with that first half hour; but what then? Or what if it becomes obvious that this incident is beyond Security’s normal capabilities, and extra resources need to kick in – if a hall of residence needs to shut, for instance? Hence, thanks to a successful bid by Bernie (on behalf of AUCSO – she is a past chairman) to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), training has been provided for 140 university security and health and safety and other managers, so far. Professional Security reported from the first of five courses, in January. The Emergency Planning College is offering the course now. For one thing, when does an ‘incident’ become an emergency? For higher education, the definition is when something threatens serious damage to staff and student welfare. At this point Colin Holland, security services manager, came in and it turned out I was warming his chair – at no extra charge, I added!?<br><br>Bernie also praised the document authors, Lucy Easthope, senior lecturer in emergency management at the University of Hertfordshire; and consultant Dr Anne Eyre. You can download the document at the AUCSO website.<br><br>About AUCSO <br><br>AUCSO runs regional meetings and an annual conference – next at York (security host: Ken Batten) from April 21 to 23, 2009. <br><br>About Bernadette Duncan<br><br>Was in the Royal Military Police for 14 years. Awarded the MBE in summer 2007 for services to higher education. <br>
You can download the guide from the ‘services’ part of the AUCSO website:
http://www.aucso.org.uk/index.php?page=emergency-management
