With tens of thousands of staff to be employed and deployed during the six-week period covering the 2012 Olympic Games in the Capital, finding a solution to this manpower dilemma that’s backed by the regulatory process is the biggest task facing employers and the Security Industry Authority (SIA).
“It’s fair to say that security and stewarding on this scale has never been seen before in the UK,” commented Fraser Halliday, specialist services director with Reliance Security Services who was speaking at the company’s recent one-day conference on the subject, held in Maidstone.
Outlining the enormity of the task facing security solutions providers, Halliday revealed some of the estimated figures Olympics officials have been wrestling with for a while now. “There’s a need to accommodate 10,000 athletes, house 11,000 members of the Olympic Family, coaches and officials and support 23,000 journalists and photographers,” said Halliday. “Then there’s the requirement for dealing with an estimated 9.7 million spectators, and what is going to be the largest ever number of private aircraft in the UK’s already crowded airspace. Each night, there’ll be hundreds of logistics vehicles in and around the Olympic Park at Stratford. That’s a real security management issue in its own right.”
In addition, these scenarios hide their own unique complications. For example, much of the equipment demanded – such as temporary seating requirements – may exceed current UK capacity.
The biggest security challenge
Perhaps the biggest security challenge, though, centres on the requirement for 7,000 security personnel to guard the Games at their peak. Currently, there’s an estimated 150,000 SIA-licensed security operatives in the UK. Most of them are already employed. Finding a further 7,000 is considered “a monumental task”, with challenges presented to both the Regulator and employers.
Another issue being mulled over at present surrounds the scope and use of private sector security personnel. Undoubtedly, police resources are going to be stretched during the Games and the pre-Games period, thus co-operation between the public and private sectors will be “essential”.
One consequence of having to meet the demands placed by the Games will be wage inflation. In line with this, Fraser Halliday is urging customers to ensure that their security requirements in relation to 2012 would be met by their existing arrangements.
The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act
Whatever the hiring arrangements put into place for the Olympics, the Corporate Manslaughter legislation that came into effect last April will be a key consideration for the authorities. At the Reliance Conference, the implications for businesses were outlined by solicitor Andrew Macmillan (whose firm, Beers, specialises in employment issues).
In essence, the new Act aims to prosecute those businesses that fail in their duties towards either employees or customers. The legislation has been brought into force partly as a result of the failed prosecutions arising from the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster and the Hatfield rail crash.
The Act states that no one – or more – individual(s) need to be proven to be at fault if the way in which a given organisation manages or organises its activities causes a death, or if a death results from a gross breach of duty towards the deceased. This is now deemed to be a crime by the company.
In what turned into a lively exchange with the invited audience, Macmillan spent some time discussing how the new law relates to contracted staff, such as security personnel. He explained that, as hired workers, they are very much covered by this legislation. This places the onus firmly upon their employers to ensure that they’re rigidly adhering to Health and Safety regulations.
Macmillian urged delegates to “dust down” their Health and Safety rule books and revisit their contents in view of the new legislation. “Adherence to such rules will define a company’s defence in the event of a prosecution,” he explained. As such, initiating a stringent paper trail as proof of a business’ strategy is essential. Macmillan added: “Juries will be looking for evidence that a company did what was expected of it in relation to its duties in respect of the deceased.”
Macmillan concluded his polemic by recommending that businesses “extend the principles of good corporate governance to all the people who work for the company”. His belief is that this is beneficial for an organisation’s reputation and, indeed, for risk management in general.
Designing-out crime: buildings and ‘lawlessness’
Business crime issues of a different sort were then addressed by Jerry Duncan, the architectural liaison officer for Kent Police. Duncan discussed the ways in which building design can affect levels of lawlessness.
A former architect, Duncan stressed that bringing in specialists at the pre-build stage would pay dividends for residents and businesses alike. Denying would-be criminals – in particular robbers or vandals – the environment in which they can plan, loiter, hide or escape has a massive impact on crime taking place in the first instance.
Duncan said: “Much low-level crime such as graffiti and breaking-and-entering is opportunistic. Preventing those opportunities from being there in the first place is the very basis of Kent Police’s push to design-out crime.”
Combating the terrorist threat
The theme of criminal opportunity was then continued by a counter-terrorism security advisor to Kent Police, who provided delegates with information on Project Argus (an initiative designed to prepare the commercial sector in the event of a terrorist incident).
Effective terrorism places a heavy reliance on preparation, and the surveillance and monitoring – and, ultimately, the denial – of individuals looking to exploit opportunities was the subject of this address.
Potential targets such as the larger shopping centres are the focus of attention as the police service continually seeks to develop a sophisticated surveillance network that will bolster the fight to quell the terrorist threat.
