No dilution of BS 7858, thank you!

SIR – I WRITE WITH REFERENCE TO Security Watchdog managing director Terry O’Neil’s Opinion article in the December edition of Security Management Today (‘Raising the bar beyond BS 7858’, p11).

I don’t recognise the inspectorate Terry uses in his description of an inspection. Certainly, we have never felt the need to hide our files from the light of day, nor have we feared – nor, indeed, experienced – a re-inspection. I’m sure I speak for the majority of quality-based security companies when I say this.

In addition, I cannot accept that a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check tells us a great deal. How many employees are eventually sacked for dishonesty and subsequently prosecuted? My guess is one in every hundred.

We need really look no further than the Soham tragedy. Surely this showed us all the limitations of relying on Police National Computer and CRB checks alone?

Michael Ryan, the individual responsible for the Hungerford massacre, would have passed Mr O’Neil’s checking criteria. He would not have passed the BS 7858 checks.

At Constant Security Services, we’ve interviewed the most plausible of individuals with no criminal record and excellent credit references. However, they were in possession of written references exposed as being false by the BS 7858 checking procedures. These individuals were far more dangerous time bombs than the ones described in Terry’s article.

This is the second submission I’ve read in Security Management Today where BS 7858 has been attacked. I must confess that in neither of these articles have I read anything that convinces me the authors have any better ideas.

The process Terry describes seems to amount to a lowering of standards rather than any raising of the bar. I am of the firm opinion that we should all look most critically at any attempt to dilute the strength of BS 7858.