Whether the result of terrorism or natural disasters, the world in the 21st Century has already seen a series of severe events – 9/11, 7/7, Hurricane Katrina and the 2007 UK floods among them – that have threatened the viability of communities by destroying the infrastructure upon which they depend.
When a disaster strikes, we assume that it should be Governments and their agencies that spring into action to provide essential services and infrastructure recovery, thereby restoring the critical national infrastructure (CNI). We also tend to pin the blame on Governments if there is chaos and disruption following any event we judge to have been foreseeable, avoidable or easily controlled.
While Governments do prepare for such events – providing, in many cases, an excellent response – their emergency services are often stretched to their limits. Indeed, the chief of the general staff – general Sir Richard Dannatt – spoke out during the recent flooding to reveal his concern that commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan had left too few soldiers to cope with unexpected events at home.
We’ve also seen fire and rescue crews drawn from across the country in the battle to bail out flooded towns across Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and in Yorkshire.
Many Governments do have a back-up option in their Armed Forces but, increasingly, a substantial proportion of these may be unable to provide rapid and wide-ranging support as a result of protracted peace-keeping deployments around the world. In stark contrast with this picture, many major private sector businesses have rapidly deployable resources across the globe.
CNI in the 21st Century
Former US president Bill Clinton once famously described the CNI as “[infrastructure that is] so vital that its incapacity or destruction would have a debilitating impact on the defence or economic security of the nation”.
In the UK, the Government’s Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure (CPNI) advises on threats to the CNI, which it divides into nine sectors (each of which includes resources and services that are critical at every level of our society, and just as vital for individual households as much as they are entire nations) (see figure 1, below).
In one form or another, each of these sectors has always been crucial to national resilience. Today’s CNI, however, is a vastly different set-up. In each CNI sector – particularly in countries where private finance initiatives have been successful – many elements of the CNI are now the responsibility (and even property) of the private sector. Such a dramatic shift in operational control and ownership demonstrates the value of private sector involvement in the construction and operation of critical infrastructure. It also obliges Governments to rethink their approach to protecting the CNI.
Only recently, Lord Condon – G4S’ deputy chairman and former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service – added his contribution to the debate by urging attendees at a public-private sector Homeland Security Conference in London to seek innovative ways in which to deploy private sector resources and thus manage the risks to national life caused by threats to the CNI.
Many private sector companies are now engaging politicians and officials who hold responsibility for homeland security and civil contingency with a view to promoting a much bigger role for the private sector in developing significantly higher levels of CNI protection.
The private sector viewpoint
The private sector position in such debates is that protecting the CNI cannot always remain the preserve of public sector agencies such as the police and the intelligence services, and that it is high time for a root and branch rethink of the way in which nations and international organisations deal with protecting the CNI from threats ranging from catastrophic natural events to terrorism.
Private sector organisations already play a vital and significant role in CNI protection and management, with high profile examples ranging from water and electricity distribution networks right through to the personal protection of national leaders.
The private sector is also involved in running areas such as cash transportation and management, operating private prisons and building and running some roads and motorways. This dual role as both CNI operator and protector puts corporate Britain in a strong position to deliver real support to Governments seeking to improve national resilience.
For Governments not to engage fully with the private sector to improve resilience flies in the face of logic, and of some powerful precedents. Full engagement in the USA, for instance, makes private sector involvement in guarding CNI infrastructure quite natural. Private sector operators are now responsible for protecting nuclear power stations, in addition to highly sensitive sites such as the Pentagon and the NASA complex.
In Europe, the European Parliament, the Court of Justice and a growing list of major airports are secured by the private sector.
In the UK, the private sector is collaborating with public sector agencies and the Government to improve the standards of storage, transportation and protection of cash (under the Bank of England-led notes circulation scheme). Standards have been dramatically raised through this three-way partnership between the Bank, commercial banks and security firms.
Griffin: a huge success
In the City of London, Project Griffin has provided an outstanding example of private-public sector collaboration in the realm of CNI protection. Griffin is a co-ordinated approach to security led by the City of London Police, and involves 4,000 private security professionals (‘From Guards to Guardians’, SMT, May 2005, pp40-42). The scheme sees the police providing threat education, weekly threat briefings and disaster cordon training while the private sector security officers become invaluable extra eyes and ears for the police.
Griffin’s success is now being replicated across the UK and internationally in cities such as Manchester, New York and Hong Kong.
In recent times, private sector companies have also started to help national Governments with their response to emergency situations overseas. During the fighting in Lebanon in 2006, multinational companies based in Beirut largely sought the assistance of private security companies – not Government agencies or forces – to evacuate their citizens.
The private sector, then, has shown the very real benefits of using its commercial expertise, capabilities and international reach to provide CNI-related services previously thought of as the exclusive domain of the public sector. The growing need for greater national and international resilience, however, demands that we replicate work such as Project Griffin throughout each of the nine CNI sectors.
In many circumstances, the private sector’s flexible, international resources are superior to those owned by individual Governments.
The agenda for change
Many private sector organisations are constantly seeking ways in which to drive greater involvement – wherever it is deemed appropriate – to the overarching need for greater CNI protection. A case could be made for the need for new legislation and regulations to create obligations on private sector companies to protect the CNI projects they bid to operate. On a personal level, I would argue that this would be a logical development.
Furthermore, with the pressure on Government agencies to produce ever more accurate and pre-emptive intelligence, private sector organisations with their myriad international networks offer new avenues for providing appropriate intelligence, often much more quickly than individual nations can achieve. After all, the private sector has been using security consultancies to provide business intelligence for many years. Making such intelligence networks available to the public sector is simply common sense.
Of course, private sector involvement in CNI protection begs the question: “Who pays?” A question that’s particularly pertinent in an area of Government in which some are reluctant to pursue private sector involvement.
Yet, historically, it’s very clear that the private sector – driven as it is by the need to compete successfully and to impress stock markets – will always rise to such challenges without necessarily demanding money from local finance ministries.
Faced with aggressive timescales to protect the atmosphere by fitting catalytic converters, the automotive industry, for example, took no time at all to turn challenge into opportunity with converter technology becoming a competitive edge for some. In the case of digital switchover in the UK, fears about requiring consumers to dispose of their analogue televisions have evaporated as the electronics industry has rolled out digital sets in record time, allowing the UK Government to contemplate an early switchover.
In the area of CNI protection, these competitive forces are complemented by the markets’ expectation that private sector companies will pursue an active agenda on corporate social responsibility, into which their contribution towards CNI protection fits well.
Large corporate organisations are also increasingly expected – both by the markets and their customers – to develop advanced business continuity and corporate resilience arrangements (often as part of licence-holding regulations such as those operated by the UK’s Financial Services Authority).
For companies operating elements of the CNI, such continuity arrangements are important contributions to the nation’s wider provision for CNI protection. In reality, there is no alternative but to use the private sector to protect – and build – critical infrastructure. No Government should turn its back on the private sector’s impressive resources for innovation, investment and programme oversight in CNI protection. Any Governments that do so will be taking needless risks.
Co-ordinated, appropriate resources
In welcoming greater private sector participation, however, we must be clear that Governments are not leading us towards some unwelcome future with privatised armies and intelligence agencies. The private sector is not arguing for this. Citizens would rarely accept such moves in any event. Rather, the private sector – as shown by Project Griffin – will be deploying co-ordinated, appropriate resources to support the public sector’s strategic lead.
In reality, there’s no alternative but to use the private sector to protect and build critical infrastructures. Governments that choose to maintain the status quo rather than involving private sector companies in such operations are taking unnecessary risks.
As this debate runs on, G4S will continue to offer its global structures and resources to those national Governments seeking a dramatic reduction in national vulnerability.