Security is an industry worth over GB pound 6 billion in the UK alone. Globally, that figure runs into hundreds of billions – if not trillions – of pounds’ worth of revenue.
This is a sector employing more than 500,000 people on home shores and millions worldwide. It has harnessed leading-edge technology, can be high profile, low profile and even clandestine.
Some elements of security are growing rapidly, mainly in response to an ever-increasing range of threats. It’s most certainly a sector that plays an important role in the human psyche.
There can be little doubt that security, in all its various guises, is one of the world’s most significant business sectors. The commercial security world has matured over the years and, during the past two or three decades, we’ve witnessed a meaningful move towards ‘professionalisation’.
The academic world has embraced the importance of ‘security’ and a range of further and higher education options now exist. Many security organisations operate internationally, and some are truly global power-houses.
This all sounds great, doesn’t it? We’re all part of a large, growing, professional sector that has become the career of choice for many and is set to play an ever-more important role in the years ahead.
What, then, is the problem?
Regulation and its role in the UK security sector
Well, one area that I’ve yet to mention is regulation. In the UK, whether or not an individual requires a licence is determined by the role that’s performed and the activities undertaken. These are described fully in the Private Security Industry Act 2001 (as amended).
The activities defined as licensable by that Act are as follows:
- security guarding
- Cash and Valuables in Transit
- close protection
- door supervision
- Public Space Surveillance (CCTV) monitoring
- immobilisation, restriction and removal of vehicles
- key holding
The following three additional areas are also covered in the Act but are yet to have licensing introduced. These are: private investigation activities, security consultants and precognition agents.
There have been many column inches dedicated to ‘Licensing’ over the past ten years so. Without going into the success or otherwise of its introduction, it’s noteworthy that many aspects of our ‘professional’ industry sector are currently unregulated.
Areas that arguably play as equally an important role in the delivery of the ‘security service’ are currently without regulation. System installers, for instance, can voluntarily apply to join schemes such as NSI Gold or SSAIB certification. While these provide a welcome benchmark for installation standards as well as encompassing certain other business process measures, the extended benefits of regulation are missing.
The barriers to entry are still incredibly low throughout the security industry and, while this can result in a dynamic, fast-developing environment it can also attract unscrupulous, unprofessional and even criminally-minded individuals who’s intention it is to exploit the unwitting and the uneducated and make a fast buck (or otherwise hide behind the ‘cloak’ of security to perpetrate criminal or even terrorist activity).
The questions often asked are: “Why is security different from any other industry” and: “Why do we need all of this ‘red tape’?”
Well, we don’t need ‘red tape’ for the sake of it, but the industry certainly does need oversight and supervision. Not for its own sake necessarily, but for the benefit of the people that procure security, the people that experience security and the people that rely on a private security service to help keep their livelihoods, property and loved ones safe and secure.
Position of trust to be protected
Security is different from many other areas of business since, to a large extent, it enjoys a position of trust that must be protected at all times. People trust security providers to protect them and their assets and help keep them safe, and it’s this position of trust that’s at the very heart of why security is different from many other business sectors.
Businesses invest millions in state-of-the-art buildings or developing the latest products or selling the best goods but it’s the security officer that’s trusted with the keys to the door, the codes to the alarm systems or the cash that’s generated. We protect our families and ourselves by installing security systems or fitting physical barriers and we expect Government security services to protect us from organised crime and terrorism.
Trust has played an essential part in the development of the UK security sector and this trust will continue to drive growth. As security consultants, we operate in many parts of the world and one of the words that’s regularly associated with the UK security sector is ‘trust’.
Can an industry placed in this privileged position be expected to ‘police’ itself and retain the trust of the ‘people’? We just need to look at the recent tribulations of the British media or the global financial sector to understand that trust can be frittered away very rapidly.
In October 2010, the Government announced that the Security Industry Authority (SIA) would no longer be a Non-Departmental Public Body and that there would be a ‘phased transition to a new regulatory regime’ for the private security industry. This means that the SIA will change from its current set up, but that the private security industry throughout the UK will continue to be regulated.
It’s essential that the new structure, however it looks, re-enforces the work undertaken to date by the SIA in relation to licensing and goes even further.
Now a matter of priority
The three areas mentioned in the 2001 Private Security Industry Act that have yet to be regulated should be so as a matter of priority. It could be argued that the recent revelations about how the press have operated over many years across the UK might have been curtailed if private investigation activities had been licensed.
My own area of operation, security consultancy, is in desperate need of clearly defined ‘rules of engagement’ through regulation. We still come across consultants today who are little more than ‘sales people’ for manufacturers or installers. Some take a commission on the sale of certain products. It’s this type of activity that serves to undermine integrity and professionalism and leads to bad decisions being made for the wrong reasons.
It’s essential that security consultants are completely independent and have no commercial ties to product or services providers.
When regulation is introduced it needs to encompass the type of framework used within the financial services sector. It may have many faults, but the introduction of independent financial advisers within the finance sector has provided a level of transparency that, I believe, is essential in maintaining the trust necessary for a productive relationship.
Independent of commercial interest
Among the definitions for the word ‘independent’ are: “Not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc and not dependent; not depending or contingent upon something else for existence”.
To maintain the trust of their clients and make the best decisions for the right reasons, security consultants must be independent of any other commercial interest. The ‘tenant’ of independence could also be applied to installers and integrators. If they are agents for a particular product or manufacturer then why shouldn’t their clients know about it up front? When evaluating quotations at least that can be factored-in to the decision-making process.
For the security sector to continue to prosper we need to develop the level of trust that we already enjoy in some areas of business.
The integrity of our sector and the way in which it’s perceived by the public and the rest of industry is a key foundation (or CornerStone, if you’ll excuse the pun) that we must protect and build upon.
Regulation has an important part to play in this process, and the refinement of existing licensing and its introduction into a range of other key areas is crucial.
However, we should all understand that it’s the integrity demonstrated in our everyday business that will reinforce ‘trust’. We must all do everything we can at every turn to cultivate that scenario.
Jon Roadnight MSyI is a director of independent security consultant CornerStone
- Jon Roadnight has been working in the security sector for over 20 years. Having completed a Management Development course at Thorn Security during the mid-1990s, in 1998 he founded – along with business partner Narinder Dio – the Pearl Security Group which was established as a systems integrator. After six successful years, Roadnight and Dio sold the business to Novar plc.
- Following a short spell as the director, head of systems at OCS, Roadnight once again joined forces with Dio in 2006 and CornerStone was formed as a specialist security consultancy practice (www.CornerStonegrg.co.uk)
- The business has developed well and, for the last four years, has been a finalist in the Security Consultant of the Year category at the Security Excellence Awards. In 2011, the company won both the Security Consultant of the Year Award as well as the International Achievement Award.
- CornerStone provides a broad range of services from threat and risk assessments, physical security design and performance management through to project management functions as well as focusing on a number of specialist areas (among them PSIM design and implementation, hostile vehicle mitigation and policy and strategy development to name but a few).
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