With responsibility for business and enterprise a key part of his own portfolio, Kit Malthouse will set out how City Hall has led on a campaign with London’s employers which has seen the number of apprenticeships in the Capital double.
Speaking at 10.10 am on 11 October at London’s Olympia Exhibition and Conference Centre, Malthouse will highlight the value that apprenticeships can bring to business and the importance of encouraging more SME employers to build apprenticeships into their workforce planning and structure.
London’s Deputy Mayor will be followed at the lectern by SSR Personnel’s managing director Peter French MBE, himself a Skills for Security Board member and a past Master of Global Security Summit partner The Worshipful Company of Security Professionals. He’ll be reviewing the wider role of apprenticeships.
Simon Banks, group managing director and co-founder of CSL DualCom, will then offer his own views on apprenticeships in the security sector (having joined the industry as one himself, and subsequently helping to build CSL DualCom from scratch into the GB pound 35 million business that it is today).
Banks, of course, was also one of the founders of last year’s hugely successful 100 in 100 apprenticeships drive across the security sector which has continued to gain ground (and further ministerial approval, more of which anon) in 2012.
Mike Britnell, interim CEO at Skills for Security, will underline the important role to be played by the security industry in enabling young people to find work and develop career paths by taking on apprentices.
Britnell will explain where there’s funding for the development of security apprentices, and outline the benefits to employers of using apprenticeships to build their businesses (particularly in those areas where, traditionally, apprentices are not considered the way to start a career).
Awareness around the value of apprenticeships
Since the launch of the first 100 in 100 campaign at IFSEC International in May 2011, Skills for Security, CSL DualCom and UBM have been working in tandem to raise awareness of the value of apprenticeships within the security sector.
The inaugural campaign was so successful – 155 apprentices were signed up by the time of last October’s Security Excellence Awards – that the decision was swiftly taken to go again in 2012. Pleasingly, the founding partners are on target to achieve a similar result this year.
According to Skills for Security, the AGE grant of GB pound 1,500 to support employers who take on apprentices they could not otherwise afford has been a great help.
Recognition by John Hayes MP (the former skills minister) of the security industry leading the first business sector 100 in 100 campaign inspired Skills for Security’s CEO David Greer to request a round table meeting at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. This meeting took place last month and, as has been reported on Info4Security, Matthew Hancock MP (the new skills minister) listened carefully to the suggestions made by various security employers on ways to make apprenticeships work even better for the sector.
Working with aforementioned Skills’ Board member Peter French, the training and skills body now has the opportunity to reach greater numbers of employers and promote the ‘Providing Security Services’ apprenticeship more widely to the security guarding sector in London.
Apprenticeships at the Bank of England
One of the security profession’s leading and highly respected practitioners is, of course, Don Randall MBE, director of security at the Bank of England.
“It’s good to see apprenticeships coming back to the forefront of the debate in both political and business circles,” commented Randall in conversation with Info4Security. “Several years ago they were at the core of the working world, and they need to be back there.”
Randall referred to the “stereotypical” nature of the security profession in days gone by, in that its membership would – typically – consist of those with a military or law enforcement background.
“Today’s world demands new skills,” he said, “such as knowledge of business continuity and audit. We can put individuals in place now on apprenticeship schemes so that they’re able to learn the profession of security from a young age.”
As a result of taking such a course of action, Randall’s a firm believer history will show this engenders a greater diversity across security in terms of its employment cohort.
“We should experiment by engaging with new and different communities,” explained the former police superintendent, deputy head of the Fraud Squad and Master of The Worshipful Company of Security Professionals. “It’s almost as if we should be following the path of the police three decades ago when a conscious effort was made to look at gender and race mixes within the service.”
Working in tandem with Skills for Security
The Bank of England numbers 130 security staff among its ranks, and there has been constant liaison between Randall and his team and the bank’s welfare specialists around the apprenticeships issue.
“The existing workforce are all for apprenticeships,” enthused Randall. “They see it as a big, big plus-point. We then checked with senior management and they gave the go-ahead. Subsequently, we spoke to Skills for Security around logistics and determined that we want to provide opportunities for young people.”
Just now, Randall and his colleagues are engaging with youngsters in some London Boroughs. “We’re working with them on CVs and the whole recruitment process,” urged Randall. “In an ideal world, each year we’d like to take on two apprentices and one graduate to become part of the security team at the Bank of England. We want the first apprentice to be on our books by year end.”
In conclusion, Randall stated with tangible purpose: “Our motivation is to have a workforce that’s diverse in both age and ethnicity. There’s no doubt that, as part of this mix, apprentices add enormous value to the team.”
Further information on the Global Security Summit
*For further information on Global Security Summit London, the full education programme and speaker line-up please visit http://www.globalsecurity-summit.com/, follow us on Twitter (@GSS_London) or join the LinkedIn Group
**Companies interested in exhibiting should contact event manager Tracy Bebbington on tel: 0207 921 8065 or e-mail: [email protected] or Paul Amura (business development director at Pro-Activ Publications) on tel: 020 8295 8307 or e-mail: [email protected]
Free Download: The Video Surveillance Report 2023
Discover the latest developments in the rapidly-evolving video surveillance sector by downloading the 2023 Video Surveillance Report. Over 500 responses to our survey, which come from integrators to consultants and heads of security, inform our analysis of the latest trends including AI, the state of the video surveillance market, uptake of the cloud, and the wider economic and geopolitical events impacting the sector!
Download for FREE to discover top industry insight around the latest innovations in video surveillance systems.
