SMT Online acted as the Official Media Partner for the event, and its Editor Brian Sims was on site to report on matters as they unfolded.
Today and across the next few days, we’ll be posting several speeches and exclusive reports from the conference – so keep an eye out for them! Subjects covered ranged from modern apprenticeships and security guarding through to CCTV, licensing and regulation, the private sector-police partnership and the presentation of Skills for Security’s Special Award to honour Contribution to Skills Development and Training in Scotland.
To begin, then, here’s what David Greer had to say…
Dealing with troubled times
There’s little doubt that we in the security business sector are living in rather difficult times. It’s difficult for individuals, for whom the future is uncertain as companies look to reduce costs. It’s also difficult for businesses themselves, with cash flow faltering, margins squeezed and customers demanding more and more cost savings.
Let’s not forget – as if we could – the difficulties being faced by the Government, whose position at the present time puts me in mind of the definition of an economist. In other words, an expert who will know tomorrow why the prediction he made yesterday didn’t come true today!
Yes, we’re all facing an uncertain future. However, we in the security profession have experienced problems with the economy before, and survived them. For example, we went through the pain of stagflation in the 1970s – complete with the energy crisis, industrial disputes and the three-day week – and we came out of the other side and carried on, all guns blazing.
When the 1980s kicked in, we were all hit by 27% inflation, rising interest rates and the beginnings of a recession that led to widespread closures across the manufacturing sector – our industry’s traditional customer base. However, we knuckled down, adapted our offering to meet changing requirements, recognised new opportunities and survived to become a leaner, fitter and more modern security sector.
Then along came the problems that beset us all in the 1990s. This time around, the effects were most keenly felt in the services, retail and financial sectors as the nation struggled with our involvement in – and then subsequent withdrawal from – the ERM. Slow growth and rising unemployment were the order of the day.
Massive number of business closures
By 1992, around 1,200 businesses were closing every week. Many of them, of course, being former buyers of security products and services. That said, the resourcefulness, resilience and sheer nimbleness of security companies dragged the industry through all of these problems. Those characteristics will see it through these tough times as well.
We would not deny, however, that these are indeed dangerous times for any businesses, but those same concerns must avoid the temptation to adopt a bunker mentality. No-one ever succeeded in commerce by sitting tight and failing to invest for the future. That’s not how those of you who weathered the previous storms managed to pull through when others failed.
At times like these, when customers are looking to reduce their spending, suppliers need to be able to demonstrate how they’re delivering value in return for the fees and prices they charge. If they cannot produce that evidence and show why those charges are justified, they’re likely to find their customers disappearing.
Let’s not forget that a lost customer not only damages your business, but also improves the businesses of whichever competitor subsequently picks up the contract.
How to make yourself stand out from the rest
One method of improving your chances is to make sure that you’re different – that you have something which is worth paying for – by ensuring that all of your people are trained to a level that exceeds basic requirements.
How many companies can say, hand on heart, that they have done anything that sets them aside from their competitors when it comes to training?
If you’re in one of the Security Industry Authority’s (SIA) licensable sectors, for example, then all of your staff will have passed their licence-linked examinations. Then again, so have all your competitors’ members of staff. There’s no Unique Selling Point in that. You will also have site-trained all of your people but, again, how does that differentiate them and your organisation?
When we start to look at development training – equipping people with additional skills and knowledge that helps them perform to a higher standard – then the picture changes. They start to stand out from the crowd, and you can trade on your company’s professionalism.
How so? By showing your clients that your people are (for example) qualified First Aiders or educated in emergency response, or that they can demonstrate professional customer service skills, complete an apprenticeship or attain other work-related qualifications.
You can demonstrate that there are sound reasons for the client maintaining its business with you – or giving the contract to you – rather than risking the security and reputation of its own business by changing over to a lower-priced, less-skilled and high maintenance competitor.
Winning business on quality of service
Thankfully for the industry as a whole, more and more employers are beginning to realise the benefits of winning business on the quality of their service rather than how cheap their prices are in comparison to others.
SIA licensing has done much to raise the profile of the security business sector and, to some extent at least, raise standards. However, any advances that have been made do not lie solely at the feet of the Regulator.
Rather, it’s the industry itself which has done most to make this thing we call ‘security’ an important, worthwhile and valuable contributor to the economy – and maintain the safety and security of the people of Scotland as well as everyone else resident in the UK.
Security staff in Scotland hold in excess of 18,000 licences to practice and over 5,000 vocational qualifications between them. Those qualifications range from apprenticeships through to degree-level attainments. Ladies and Gentlemen, I put it to you that this is no insignificant and unskilled industry. Employers and training providers in Scotland can be justly proud of their contribution to the growth of the security business sector.
New apprenticeship framework in place
Talking of Scottish success stories, I’m extremely pleased that we at Skills for Security have been successful this year in attaining approvals for a new Scottish apprenticeship framework specifically designed to serve the systems part of the sector.
Following detailed dialogue with Scottish employers operating in the alarms, CCTV and access control arenas, understanding their needs and what it is they want from a modern apprenticeship, we’ve created an all-new, fit for purpose apprenticeship qualification that’s fully funded by the Scottish Government.
Offering options at Levels 2 and 3, the apprenticeships are currently available through training centres in Motherwell, here in Glasgow and in Edinburgh. Of course, if there’s sufficient demand then we’ll be pleased to help in bringing in partners further north so that we reduce the need for apprentices having to travel long distances for college.
Modern apprenticeships are a great way of gaining skills because they involve both technical study and practical, on-the-job training in the workplace. This means that the young apprentices benefit from learning the latest techniques imparted by qualified instructors, while at the same time being able to absorb the invaluable experience, skills and knowledge of older generations of engineers.
This initiative will attract younger people into a section of the industry where there’s a shortage of qualified staff. It will also help Scottish employers further by helping to build a workforce that’s capable of meeting the technical challenges laid down by the 21st Century.
Indeed, approval for the new apprenticeship framework north of the border could not be more timely, as the Scottish Government has announced that it will be funding an additional 7,800 apprenticeship places this year. That will bring the total number of apprenticeships available in Scotland in 2009 to 18,500.
Undoubtedly, this new framework affords our security systems sector employers an excellent opportunity to train the engineers of the future at minimal cost.
Research on security in Scotland
What else has your sector skills body been doing for Scotland? Well, we’re currently in the process of finalising a research project that will provide up-to-date information concerning the Scottish security industry’s labour market. This research is vital in helping us to help our Scottish employers, and in terms of targeting public support from the Scottish Government by identifying where there are skills gaps and shortages, and what needs to be done in order to address them.
The research has already yielded some interesting facts and figures. Perhaps not surprisingly, 86% of the workforce in the Scottish security sector is male compared to the average for most industries in Scotland (which is 52% male, 48% female). Unsurprising maybe, but it does show that if we can make the business of security more attractive to women we could potentially double the size of the recruitment pool.
83% of Scottish security companies employ fewer than 50 people. That information is useful both in terms of lobbying the Government for greater assistance with funded training and for influencing how learning should be delivered. We are all well aware of the additional difficulties that SMEs face when trying to release people for training.
Although most security staff now hold qualifications, there’s very little evidence that further development training is being made available to them. If this issue isn’t addressed it will have serious implications for retention, on the next generation of managers, on companies’ abilities to meet their clients’ expectations and on their need to keep pace with technological change.
Scottish employers in the security business sector have identified that a lack of management and leadership skills is a major problem but, if they’re not investing in staff development, why should they be at all surprised at this lack of vital skills?
Recruitment of a manager north of the border
In developing our response to these challenges, our first step has been to recruit a local manager such that we can begin to truly understand the Scottish perspective and better deliver the products and services needed.
John Taylor has been a familiar face on the Scottish security scene for many years now through his involvement with both Strathclyde Police and the British Security Industry Association. I was very pleased when, late last year, John accepted our invitation to represent Skills for Security in Scotland.
This provides the necessary Scottish perspective for our planning and initiatives, and also means that there’s a local contact for employers. Someone who has a detailed understanding of the concerns and priorities in Scotland, and can visit employers for one-to-one discussions.
I’m also pleased to report continued progress with our Scottish Employer Consultation Group. We established this group two years ago as part of our UK-wide network of security professionals which we use to ensure that we keep abreast of current thinking on – and can react to – the training and qualifications requirements of employers.
I’m also very pleased to announce today that, because of the investments we’ve made in Scotland, we’ll shortly be forming separate groups for employers in the guarding, security systems and door supervision sectors, and hope to then create a Special Investigators Group at some point during the summer.
Planning for the 2014 Commonwealth Games
Looking a little further forward, Skills for Security has been closely involved with planning for the security operation that will deliver a safe Olympic Games in London come 2012.
At present, we’re heading up the committee tasked with finding solutions to the challenges of recruiting and training of thousands of additional security staff to work alongside their police colleagues, and addressing the need for common standards and transferable skills sets between people working in either the public or private security sectors.
Ever mindful of a similar event taking place north of the border two years later, as you would expect we have also begun the process of building contacts with those organisations gearing up for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
We’ll be using our experience of planning for 2012, and putting the lessons learned to good use by working with Scottish security companies and training providers to deliver a highly-skilled and trained team of security specialists – from uniformed personnel through to biometrics technicians – that will be needed to protect the athletes and their coaches, the organisers and their contractors, the media, celebrities and of course the national and international visitors who’ll be descending on Glasgow for this major sporting spectacular.
Progress on National Occupational Standards
On the wider stage, my colleagues and I at Security House have been working on projects that benefit employers in all four countries of the UK. We have developed a range of National Occupational Standards (NOS) that now encompass all occupations in the security sector, ranging from installers through to security dog handlers.
Although of great use to us, the SIA and to the awarding bodies when it comes to developing qualifications, the National Occupational Standards provide a wonderful, free resource for employers who can use them to conduct training needs analyses and staff appraisals, write job descriptions and vacancy advertisements and benchmark the skills of their workforce against nationally agreed standards.
We have conducted rigorous quality checks on a wide range of commercial training programmes, from locksmith issues to weapons awareness, so that employers and trainers alike can be confident that a programme bearing the Skills for Security accredited logo is of a high standard – and that the trainer delivering the course is qualified to do so.
We also meet regularly with the universities to encourage the development of higher level qualifications for professionals who want to maintain and improve their knowledge of security-related subjects.
Constant dialogue with the Regulator
At the other end of the educational range we are, as you would fully expect of your skills body, in regular dialogue with the SIA to express our views on issues pertaining to re-licensing and the review of competency requirements for licensing purposes – including such tricky subjects as whether or not training in physical intervention skills ought to be mandatory for certain occupations.
In short, then, we have been busy. Skills for Security has only been in existence for three years, but I believe that we’ve accomplished much on behalf of Scotland-based employers, employees and their training providers.
Of course, we recognise that there’s much more to do. The good news is that we have the energy, the people and the will to continue to deliver for our industry, and to work with you during these difficult economic times. We cannot do it without you – the practitioners who are out there delivering services day in and day out.
Please keep talking to us and advising us. For our part, we’ll keep on working with you to make what is already a great Scottish security business sector better for everyone who works within it and clients that procure its services.
*Readers north of the border who’d like to contact John Taylor can do so by sending him an e-mail ([email protected]) or calling John on 07752 164774
