In an effort to galvanise end user confidence in the service providers – and to put pressure on those contractors that are not up to British Standards or accountable to inspection – the industry has of course now subjected itself to the rule of law by way of the Private Security Industry Act. This is a move welcomed by many outsiders, of course, not least the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).
However, licensing is being opposed by many of the contract security companies in the light of what they see as ACPO 'bias', and the fact that only contract security officers will be licensed while in-house guards are ignored. This does smack of the Home Office picking on the contract industry, which for many of us is quite unpalatable.
Alas, there appear to have been vested interests at work when it came to turning the Private Security Industry Bill into full-blown legislation. Legislation that will increase costs for those firms that cannot afford the extra on-costs of licensing. Indeed, many companies will go to the wall (Inspectorate of the Security Industry/British Standards-inspected and approved or otherwise).
Most of us want to see some return for our money when it comes to maintaining expensive standards, and an enhanced prestige for the difficult work we have to undertake. Licensing should not be there merely to appease ACPO, which obviously feels threatened by an increasingly professional private manned security sector that it would like to see leashed and used when it suits.
The legal right to self-defence
Importantly, those in the British Security Industry Association (BSIA) have not made their stance known when questioned in respect of the legal right for self-defence among the security officer fraternity, and indeed the carrying of much-needed protection such as batons, CS gas and pepper spray by the same. In not revealing its hand, I feel that the BSIA is failing the industry at large.
Those contractors which the BSIA represents have more than a vested interest not to release figures concerning violence or assaults against their own front line security guards. Why? Simple. They are fearful of the increased costs needed for training in firearms – a cost that they can bear quite easily – and the effect this might have on their substantially large profits and (therefore) shareholder base.
On many occasions police officers will not be subjected to anything like the same level of risk as a security guard. One only need refer to last August's callous murder of a Securitas officer in Derbyshire as proof of that ('Tragedy strikes at Securitas in wake of upbeat market figures', News, SMT, September 2001). With this in mind, I believe – as do many others – that the issue of licensing ought to include "the legal right to self-defence" and the right to carry "forms of protection" if a professionally-trained security officer wishes to do so.
If the powers-that-be selectively ignore the issue of arming security officers, and neglect to debate it as part of the ongoing licensing process, the contract security sector will not be an effective, capable or recognised force in the years to come. The
In light of Jasvinder Bohgan's killing, I'd be very interested to learn what protection Securitas – as an international security company – affords its officers here in Britain.
Over the years I have carried on with a vigorous campaign in my own city, involving the local media and BBC Radio Leicester, to tell all about the increasingly high profile, front line role performed by trained security officers operating in the public domain. And, more importantly, the ever-increasing violence towards those officers that is often suppressed by those that employ them.
What, you might ask, is a typical front line duty? Working in the courts, guarding in private prisons and escorting prisoners, working in A&E departments and benefits offices, the Cash-in-Transit function, retail guarding and private street patrols readily spring to mind. Surely, if contract officers are good enough to be entrusted with such high profile duties, why can the industry not train its officers to carry a baton post-licensing?
Unacceptable reins of public service
I simply do not believe that the arming of trained officers will encourage criminals to carry more firearms. They're already doing so, primarily because of the failure of the police's own Stop and Search Policy. What I'm advocating here is not about arming every single officer, rather it's about making the more important issues surrounding the whole licensing package acceptable to security companies as a whole. It's about bringing to the forefront of the debate those issues that are really affecting the officers 'on the ground', and the unacceptable reins of public service under which they must operate.
Why, for example, do the police complain that security officers are not vetted well enough when they refuse point black to let us have use of the police computer?
Subject to the 'sue culture'
Private security companies are now more than ever before subject to the 'sue culture' affecting those injured at work.
I recently spoke with the Health and Safety Executive about this, explaining that Guardian Security always 'risk assesses' the front line duties our staff are required to perform, and the premises at which they work. At present, security companies are being allowed to deliberately fail the Health and Safety at Work Act by not being able to legally provide proper protection for the job required of their officers.
It's only a matter of time before security companies are taken to the European Court of Human Rights for failing to correctly risk assess and provide the proper means of uniformed protection required of the service which they provide.
Source
SMT
Postscript
Gene Plews is managing director of Guardian Security (Leicester)