The true value of good security

The issue of how the provision of security services should be valued is a debate that has dominated this industry for years. With few barriers to entry, low prices have always dogged the sector, eroding margins, encouraging minimal service, bringing in disreputable operators and discouraging investment. At the same time – and not surprisingly – expectations of customers from their suppliers have generally been low.

The downward pressure on prices reflects my own experience. In my eight years in the industry, I’ve noticed a change from a predominance of local supply and local arrangements to a more consolidated position, certainly within national organisations, with a far greater emphasis on price.

In more recent times, modern purchasing techniques have become prevalent, with the use of e-auctions, for example, pitted against traditional security views and the preference of ‘experts’, focusing on cost rather than service. In essence, buying to a price rather than to any kind of standard.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve nothing against efficiency, but if cost efficiency is sought over everything else, there is a risk of cutting into the flesh instead of just paring away the fat. That is to everyone’s detriment. In other words, something’s got to ‘give’.

The commodity purchase

I’m sure there’s a minority of customers of security services who want nothing more than a uniformed officer stood at the entrance to a site or store simply as a deterrent, and therefore don’t see the need to pay a premium for such an unskilled – not to say thankless – task. Under those circumstances the human being, the security officer, is a commodity. The cheaper the client can buy that commodity, the better the situation.

Fortunately, that type of client is now in a minority. A shrinking minority, at that. The security world has moved on and is, slowly but surely, becoming recognised as the purveyor of a wide range of quality services completely appropriate to the modern business environment.

The reasons for this are manifold – the rise of the giant shopping complexes and the intricate security demands they require, the advent of technology such as CCTV that has driven the need for proficient operators and the changing nature of policing (that has forced businesses to reassess their security requirements) among them. In addition, Government policies aimed at encouraging all agencies involved in the law and order environment to work together have also seen the role of private security reassessed.

The results of these developments are beginning to show through. Security personnel, particularly in the retail environment, are taking on wider remits, including responsibility for Health and Safety, First Aid and customer assistance. Commercial security staff in major cities are increasingly being used by the police service as an integral part of the latter’s anti-terrorism strategy.

Using available resources

I’ve nothing against efficiency, but if cost efficiency is sought over everything else, there is a risk of cutting into the flesh instead of just paring away the fat. That is to everyone’s detriment

For our part, Reliance Security Services runs around 30 seminars each year across the UK in which senior police and security executives seek to explain the emergence of the wider police family to a mainly business audience.

Andy Drane – deputy chief executive of the Security Industry Authority (SIA) – spoke at our Manchester event in January. He commented: “The scale of opportunity to involve the security industry in the wider police family is huge. By the middle of this year, there will be 150,000 licensed security officers in this country, and a further 60,000 with some sort of security qualification. That is a huge resource, and we advocate more and better engagement between the private security industry and the wider policing agenda.”

Speaking in Derby earlier this year, Denis O’Connor – of Her Majesty’s Constabulary for the West Midlands – suggested the fast pace of change in today’s society meant that the police and other agencies, including private security, must work together to address new challenges to law and order. “Society is changing,” said O’Connor. “The problems we will all face in five years’ time will not be the same as they are today. We have to change to meet those challenges. The police and other agencies must seize the opportunity to effect this change. There is no alternative.”

“Security companies like Reliance have so much to offer us,” opined chief superintendent Richard Johnson, who sits on the National Executive Committee of the Police Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales and spoke to our seminar delegates in Yorkshire. He went on to list a host of jobs undertaken by his officers, such as accompanying prisoners to hospital, that could be undertaken by security personnel.

At May’s seminar in Wales, chief superintendent Bob Evans – a Cardiff police commander – told the regional audience: “The police service cannot solve all the problems relating to crime on its own. We have to be willing to partner with whomever it takes in order to do the job to the best of our ability.”

Labour’s Law and Order Agenda

Underpinning these remarks are the wide-ranging Government reforms being pursued across the entire law and order agenda. From our perspective, regulation of the security industry is already having positive effects.

BSIA chief executive David Dickinson recently forecast that the number of legal, operational security firms could fall to 200 as those businesses unwilling or unable to employ licensed personnel drop out of the market. That is but one of the dynamics that I believe will radically change the view of the market towards our industry.

Prices may rise as demand exceeds supply – and we have a tough responsibility as an industry to raise our game in response to that. However, as customer expectations of us all begin to increase, that can only be a positive development for true partnership working.

Private security provision has been viewed with cynicism for far too long. Let us hope that the wide-ranging changes being undertaken today – and the quality improvements they signal – will help our customers to realise the true value of our services in the future.