Patrolling Britain

Martin Rolfe is one of six private security guards contracted to patrol the gigantic Aylesbury Estate in Southwark, south-east London.

The sprawling 1970s-built Estate is home to nearly 3,000 people living mainly in its 20 high-rise tower blocks. Southwark Council launched the Aylesbury Estate Security Patrol five years ago, in response to high crime levels. Today, the Patrol is one of 23 schemes praised in the Neighbourhood Wardens Report published by the Government’s Social Exclusion Unit.Rolfe, a member of the Aylesbury patrol team since day one, says: “We encounter less trouble now than when we started but we can only patrol the area during certain hours of the day. Criminals living on the estate know they can carry out activities outside of those hours.”

Nevertheless, Rolfe is adamant the Patrol has made the Estate safer for residents to live on. His assertion is supported by the Aylesbury Tenants & Residents Association, as well as local police.

PC Kevin Holland of Walworth Police, beat officer for the area, says: “We really appreciate the guards being here and we’re in constant contact with them. The guards alert us to any criminal activities they encounter on their patrols.”

Police statistics on crime in the Aylesbury area over the last four years show crime on the Estate has dropped as a result of the patrol scheme.

There has been a notable reduction in assaults and vehicle crime — the two most common crimes committed on the Estate — as well as reductions in sexual offences, drug arrests, criminal damage offences and burglary. However, a recent council survey found that 39% of residents living on the Estate still see crime as a major concern.

Security by numbers

Southwark Council has contracted private security companies to run the Aylesbury Estate Security Patrol since its inception in 1994. The use of security officers as neighbourhood wardens has also been advocated by leading figures such as police chief constables Ian Blair of Surrey and ACPO president John Newing.

UK Guarding Services Ltd, has been the incumbent at Aylesbury for the past four years, introducing lines of reporting and management that get both residents and patrol members working together. Rolfe explains: “Before UK Guarding Services got the contract, there was no proper management structure. There was little supervision and we didn’t really know who to report to. The new company’s management team, though, seem to have the right idea. They’re more ‘hands-on’ and looking to improve things — they’ve already given us mobile phones so we can contact each other while on patrol.”

Peter Southwick, contracts manager at Southwark Housing and patrol co-ordinator, says: “Public relations is important here. UK Guarding Services realises the need to constantly liaise with tenants and the Council.”

Although the scheme has taken time to bed in, Southwick believes the Council is finally getting it right. Even so, he recognises that there is room for more guards on the estate to make a really significant dent on crime.

Phillip Richford, managing director of UK Guarding Services, says: “Given today’s criminal activity and recorded crime, I would say the numbers we have on the estate are about right.

But the hours we work may need some extending. We can move within our budget and introduce flexible hours of working. We’ve issued residents with an 0800 freephone number for them to call us with problems, there is a mobile network and we have a local office.

“We realise that if we have an intelligence telling us when trouble is brewing, however, we can introduce evidence-gathering and flexible working and pass that on to the local beat officer, and then together with all that information we can put together a solution to a problem. But you cannot please all the people all the time. There is a criminal element on the Estate who are always going to be unhappy that we are there, but we are determined that we will go back time and again to make sure they move on.”

Money for guarding

A few miles down the road from the Aylesbury Estate, yet a million miles away in terms of funding, is the Wessex Gardens residential development, also praised by the Neighbourhood Wardens report. A patrol, paid for by the development’s 300 residents, has been in operation on the housing block since 1995.

Two contract security guards provide random patrols both day and night. Says scheme co-ordinator, Alison Gibson:”There wasn’t much crime before, but residents were concerned about people being on the estate at night, such as the homeless sleeping in doorways. The guards create a general feeling of safety for the residents.”

The contrast between the duties and responsibilities of the Wessex Gardens and Aylesbury Estate schemes is striking. The Wessex Patrol team comprises two security guards compared to Aylesbury’s six, yet is responsible for only a tenth of the number of residents and covers a much smaller, far safer area.

More Manpower

While Southwick would like to increase manpower by hiring more contract security staff, his hands are tied by the Government’s New Deal for Communities (NDC) programme. The recent Neighbourhood Wardens Report also calls on patrol scheme managers to use the New Deal to recruit the long-term unemployed. Aylesbury Estate has won funding under the New Deal which means Southwick could expand the scheme by recruiting extra wardens off the dole: “At present, the Patrol costs us £185,000 a year, funded from our £3 million repairs budget,” reveals Southwick. “We cannot afford to expand the patrol scheme, unless we recruit the unemployed using our New Deal money.”

But, both Southwick and the patrol team claim recruiting extra patrol members from the ranks of the unemployed may be counter-productive. Says Rolfe: “People living on the Estate have got to know us and they know we’re not here to bully them. If you were to recruit unemployed youths to patrol here, you’d get a lot more confrontation. Most of the trouble on the Estate is caused by teenagers. There’s sometimes fights in which people are threatened with baseball bats, knives or fists but we’ve always managed to step in and de-fuse the situation — it’s all about keeping calm.”

Group 4, the UK’s biggest manned guarding company, expresses reservations about any private parties carrying out patrols. Sales and marketing director David Dickinson says: “We wouldn’t become involved in patrolling communities of any sort until after statutory regulation is passed and guidelines with the police are agreed.”

Against outsiders

Other schemes have also expressed reservations about using either contract security or recruiting under New Deal. Hartlepool Central Residents Association runs a warden scheme using caretakers and volunteers rather than contract security guards on the Central Estate in Hartlepool which, it claims, has cut crime by 35% in three years.

Savage is wary of introducing a uniformed presence: “I’m not keen on private security firms coming in, because they don’t know the residents. I feel the same about recruiting people off the New Deal.” However, she acknowledges that warden schemes do work in tandem with other activities: “We run activities to keep kids out of mischief, such as football matches and day trips to the countryside. The activities have helped keep the kids out of mischief.”

Big New Deal

But what are the issues that should concern both private security firms and Councils about recruiting wardens under the Government’s New Deal? UK Guarding Services’ Richford comments: “It would be unfair to comment since I have not yet seen the Government’s White Paper. We have also not met with the BSIA or the ISI to comment on it yet. But we do realise that we could be working with [people recruited from the ranks of the unemployed] or they could be working in place of us, which is a concern. We, as an accredited security firm, still have to ensure that we ourselves are recruiting the right people, but you do have to look at every person in fairness.”

At the Aylesbury estate, the skills required by guards are pitched at communications skills, interrelations between mixed races, first aid training and the ability to mix and inter-relate with the younger element and support the people who live on the Estate. This is in addition to the skills UK Guarding Services aims at when recruiting their own security guards, such as man-management skills, recruiting people who are able to see and recognise whether what they see is a breach of British criminal laws and pass on that intelligence to police.

Recruitment of wardens under New Deal would require putting in selection procedures to ensure staff had no criminal history, that they were financially sound, correctly trained, and have the right psychometric profile. “You do have to have your wits about you,” he says.

“When we took over four years ago, Aylesbury was one of the worst estates — now it is one of the best and we have certainly reduced the fear of crime.”