Security client

winner: Tibbett & Britten

Tibbet & Britten Group is one of the world’s leading logistics services providers, managing the supply chain for a host of blue chip customers in a wide range of business sectors. In 2000, the company appointed Colin Moore as its security manager, and he embarked on a project to bring together the resources of internal security, manned security and technology. This involved a full review of security procurement throughout the company, and the eventual single-sourcing of security officers from one contractor (VSG) where 30 firms had previously been involved. The current contract is performance-driven, bolstering the supplier-client relationship.

“Tibbett & Britten has shown that the way forward entails using electronic security in conjunction with manned guarding, allowing security officers to be better paid and work less hours while achieving a cost-effective security regime for the end user”
– JUDGES’ COMMENT

Runners-Up

Stafford General Hospital
During 2001, the Portering and Security Services Department at Stafford General Hospital began to express concern about the quality of recorded images generated by the ageing CCTV cameras that had been installed in the 1980s. Simultaneously, the Health Infomatics Service (which procures and manages all IT systems at the hospital) was keen to look at maximising the hospital’s new network by running any surveillance system using new 1 Gb cabling and Ethernet links that had been installed.

Stafford General Hospital’s management team decided to call in the experts to tender for the installation of an IP-based surveillance solution in the Autumn of 2001.

Following an open tender process which ran into December of that year, Plexnet was appointed in January 2002 to provide a reliable IP-based surveillance system that would produce high quality images – all of them easily accessible by the security staff courtesy of the existing network infrastructure.

Plexnet selected Axis Communications to provide key equipment for the new surveillance set-up, including video servers that would convert existing analogue-based CCTV cameras and bring in the new IP variants.

Special ‘discover e’ software provided by DV Networks (an Axis Application Development Partner) allows Trust security manager Giles Perry to control variable frame rates for viewing and recording. A good deal of recorded evidence has already led to successful prosecutions, which justifies the installation.

Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a major tourist attraction and one of the busiest art galleries in the world. Located on the south side of the River Thames opposite St Paul’s Cathedral, the gallery attracts no less than four million visitors each year. There are special security requirements, with priceless original works on display for much of the year.

From Day One, the client envisaged an holistic management regime encompassing security, fire safety, evacuation planning, business continuity and support for the gallery’s retail and catering outlets in terms of shrinkage and loss prevention.

The forward-thinking regime now in place emphasises the use of in-house security in tandem with a contracted service provided by Wilson James and Trident Safeguards. Constant reviews, risk assessments and consultation with the services providers has ensured that resource levels are always commensurate with activity. Thus during low visitor number periods, staff are re-deployed to carry out more security-focused tasks such as bag searches and high visibility patrolling, defaulting to visitor-based activities as and when required.