The man: Stephen Daniels; the job, Safety and Security Manager at Wembley.
There’s a buzz about leisure event security – making sure that more than 10,000 people have a great night in a safe and secure environment – that Stephen Daniels conveys even on a weekday morning. In the world of leisure names do not come much bigger than Wembley. Though Stephen is Safety and Security Manager for Wembley (London), since late 2000 the football stadium has not been in use, following its sale in 1999. That leaves in his charge Wembley Arena (11,000-seater venue for pop concerts – you name the stars, they’ve been there); Wembley Conference Centre Hall (including the main auditorium, the 2,600-seater Grand Hall, that hosts for example the annual two-week Masters snooker tournament), Wembley Exhibition Halls, a five-storey tenanted office building plus a music studio and bingo hall and some car parks. While some of the Wembley complex was built for the 1924 British Empire exhibition, the conference centre dates from the 1970s. In other words, it was not built with the latest electronic security technology. Stephen says: ‘When I arrived at Wembley there was not, for example, intruder alarms in any of the premises, and the CCTV feed was fairly minimal. My first year was a major review of security on the site for events, and medical provision and health and safety. And from that I wrote a document called Project 2000.’ This 100-page paper was a justification for a new departmental structure – CCTV to cover the whole of the site; access control (a proximity card system) and intruder alarms for all buildings, plus a centralised control room rather than a control room for each site, expensive to run and not necessarily with the tools to do the job. Not that big a project – if you say it quickly …
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How did he come to pick his present field, bringing together security with health and safety’ Stephen replies that in his previous place of work, Sheffield International Venues (see separate box) he realised what direction he wanted to take. For one thing, he joined the fire service as a retained firefighter – which meant doing everything that a firefighter does, except that he was living near a fire station and available to work – when his bleeper went, he ran out of the house and jumped on board the fire engine: ‘a very exciting and rewarding two years’. In his security day job, he did not want to be someone with a little (and never updated, at that) knowledge of fire safety. He convinced his employers to send him on a fire safety course, and gained a European diploma in fire prevention management, and an FPA (Fire Protection Association) diploma in fire safety. While at Wembley, he has gained a diploma from the British Safety Council and a National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) certificate. His four co-ordinators have gone through the Nebosh certificate course; and the safety and security officers have IOSH (Institution of Occupational Safety and Health) managing safely certificates and first-aid certificates. The last part of the process was a practical and theoretical fire course – bespoke training that Stephen is trying to design with people in the fire safety world. He does not want the normal, ’empty all waste paper bins’ fire safety course. With such training, his staff are capable of doing risk assessments and COSH (control of substances hazardous to health) assessments. Stephen’s aim was to avoid having only one person in the department with the skills and the knowledge. And then there were the electronic security measures, and the centralising into a central control room (CCR), and multi-skilling staff – officers, supervisers and managers. Yes, some of these highly-trained staff might move on, but that’s OK, that spreads the word; the aim is to deliver a better service and to raise the status of people in Security.
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Stephen points out that he did arrive at Wembley after the place had been without a security manager for a couple of years, which brought the advantage that he could start with a blank sheet, and was brought in to carry out change. It was necessary to convince his superiors that Project 2000 was the way forward; that project’s paper therefore had to justify capital expenditure not only in financial terms but in quality of service and continuous improvement terms. Looking back, what are the possible pitfalls’ Stephen makes the point that he began with a new team (bar one) of 12 safety and security officers. When recruiting, incidentally, he did not look necessarily for people with a security officer background. He cautions against the industry recruiting the same officers from one guarding company or in-house operation to the next: ‘We have to make the industry more attractive to people who maybe haven’t worked in the industry before.’ So yes, he has a former store detective, but also a former zoo worker (with good customer service skills), someone with a degree in health and safety, a PC-literate ex-call centre worker. Attitude to the job counts, not just experience of having held keys and checked doors. Given that he wanted all the officers to be IOSH-trained, he did plan that the training itself would be one cost and bringing in contractors as cover (when staff were being trained) would be another cost. He does not think that the training would have gone as quickly or as well if it had been piecemeal. Having set out in the Project 2000 document the case for spending on security – what the crime levels on the site were, what an intruder alarm system could do – the equipment was installed by the White Group last summer. Operational efficiency is up, crime down.
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What of the in-house or outsource issue’ While Stephen admits that he would never have enough staff to cover the scores of events at Wembley each year, nor does he believe that a contract company could provide him with all the skills that he wants: ‘There’s far too much knowledge needed on the site to go into the market-place and find it at a reasonable cost.’ Events range from Tweenies concerts to pop concerts (Destiny’s Child were sold out the week Professional Security visited) to political and corporate conferences and parties and sports events (such as Audley Harrison boxing bouts). The contract security provider for Wembley – the Arena might have 110 stewards for a major event – is Recruit plc, who also cover Lords cricket ground. Security back-stage is provided by the event promoter. Stephen provides a team to co-ordinate the event security. To be sure, while the public entertainments licence provides the legal background whereby a venue has a duty of care to people visiting premises (as opposed to staff covered by health and safety law) the profile of a crowd at a Tweenies concert is utterly different to a ice show or Moby gig. A superviser will be in charge of a number of blocks of seats, with stewards covering each block. Security staff are in strategic positions around the venue. If a steward has a problem – whether a mum whose children are awake past their bedtime and are upset despite the best efforts of the Tweenies; or elderly people feeling unwell at a ice show – they either resolve it or bring in the superviser. If it’s a medical matter, it could be solved by taking those concerned out the auditorium for fresh air, or to the medical centre. (The event team includes medics who are nurses and paramedics by day, and Wembley provides them with medical equipment such as defribilators.) Stephen raises crowd-surfing at concerts by thrash-metal bands – whereby young fans jump into the ‘pit’ and are tossed around by the crowd. This is dangerous, and frowned upon by Wembley, who seek to put a stop to it. Stephen says: ‘It would be naive to expect you would have 11,000 people in a building and there would be no security issues. So yes, on occasion people need to be asked to leave the premises.’ That could be because of drunkenness or because of a fight breaking out. That’s not something for stewards – who may be students, or at any rate doing stewarding as a second job; the stewards would call in security to deal with any out of hand incident, and any ejections. CCTV coverage of the venues allow control room staff to spot any incident, and brief the team on the ground. White Group installed for Wembley an Octar 2000 digital recording system, meaning an end to storing videotapes.
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It almost seems churlish to ask, but what next’ He sees co-ordinators taking on his, managerial, functions; and officers doing the co-ordinators’ functions, leaving Stephen to devote more time to business continuity and disaster recovery, and developing the department as a service provider, whether to the Wembley (London) company or third parties. Safety and security is the second largest department in the company (second to maintenance), and is within the operations department (which also includes merchandising, telephony, event management and maintenance). Training and updating of procedures never stops. Stephen has spent the last three or four years working solidly on health and safety qualifications; he wonders if it is time for a security qualification, such as the CPP from the American Society for Industrial Security. He is talking to the Metropolitan Police about them providing a course – Stephen providing the venue – in visual recognition of bombs. Such training would be offered to Wembley operations managers (who would give the word for a building evacuation), security staff, car park staff, caterers – people who might spot a suspicious package and yet not know what a bomb fuse or timing device looks like. Stephen is alive to the fact that as he becomes a manager of scores of people, more of his time is taken up with general managerial matters, such as appraisals, leaving less time for him to use his security skills. Just as the sweet shop manager does not necessarily eat a pound of Belgian chocolate every day, so Stephen does not occupy the front row at every must-see concert. It’s a great place to work, he says. Helping thousands of people to have a great day or night out is rewarding – and Stephen believes that to make the event run smoothly, security is linked with health and safety.
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Stephen Daniels career: Joined Royal Navy in 1983, went to the Falklands in 1984, and Persian Gulf 1990-1. Left Navy after eight years, joined Sheffield International Venues; started as SIV’s first security officer. Progressed to group fire safety and security manager. In his first year at SIV he joined South Yorkshire Fire Brigade as a retained firefighter. Moved from SIV to Wembley in November 1999.
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About the job: Based at Elvin House, Wembley, partly rented out to tenants. 12 safety and security officers, four co-ordinators, ten fire officers, two administrators, an occupational health department, 12 charge nurses, and 50 to 60 first-aiders on the books.
