Two-part Harmony

Is Darwin’s theory of evolution alive and kicking in the security industry? This month sees the official birth of the National Security Inspectorate, which will become the umbrella organisation under which NACOSS and ISI will operate. But is it business as usual or a genuine response to the evolutionary pressures of business?

When talks initially began between the two inspection bodies, it seemed logical that NACOSS and ISI should pool their expertise and resources. With a backdrop of growing demand for manned services to incorporate more technological duties, and the growth of communications technology requiring more systems-literate security personnel, it seemed only a matter of time before the two bodies merged. But what has emerged is a new animal which will pick the best of both worlds to ensure it is not ignored when the Government’s Private Security Industry Authority is formed. That seems to be the plan for the NSI.

A march for standards

Says David Holt, chief executive of NACOSS: “The objective of the NSI is to be a broad-based high quality inspectorate. It’s not really sensible to continue to look at the alarms industry and the guarding industry as two separate cocoons.

There’s much more interaction between the two industries, and if you look to the future there is the possibility of licensing and statutory regulation which will cover the whole industry.

It makes sense to set up an organisation that will cover those requirements.”

Although not claiming to be a regulator as such, both NACOSS and ISI have publicly stated their wish to endorse the voluntary regulation scheme proposed in the Government’s White Paper.

Says Ian Sanderson, the ISI’s inspector general: “Once the PSIA is established, we wish to be involved in what the standards for the industry are going to be. That could mean compliance with existing British Standards, or they could be a variation of a theme incorporating salient features from existing standards. To whomever they apply, whether to the alarms industry, guarding, wheel clampers, door supervisors or whatever, we need to make sure the schemes we offer are going to meet those standards. And we would like to think that companies who are registered with NACOSS and ISI will be automatically registered to those standards without having to do a lot more. So if the PSIA is going to introduce some new logo, or watermark or something else [when it is formed and is ready to give its seal of approval], we think that companies who are already registered through the NSI, ISI and NACOSS will satisfy that criteria and should be automatically eligible.”

Day to day operation

So, to what extent are NACOSS and ISI going to harmonise operations? While admitting that separately neither organisation would be able to meet the changing needs of the industry as a whole, little is expected to change in their day-to-day activities. In fact, both Holt and Sanderson are keen to emphasise that from their customers’ point of view, little will change.

Neither body will lose any staff, so customers will continue to deal with the same personnel, and the two offices will continue to operate from their respective locations.

Says Holt: “There is a perfectly adequate scheme for the inspection of intruder alarms — a quality assured scheme — and there is no reason to interfere with that. It is running perfectly well and most people are happy with it. Similarly there is a perfectly adequate, quality assured scheme being operated by ISI for manned guarding, so there is no reason to interfere with that either.”

Null change?

One might be excused for thinking that nothing was going to change, that the NSI was little more than a cosmetic exercise. So what is going to be different about the NSI?

Firstly, the NSI will be an umbrella body responsible for general policy issues and dealing with administrative and marketing issues.

Secondly, it will take the long view of the security industry. “The strength of NSI is where you’ve got new things coming along and that’s in a formative process,” says Holt.

In one of its newest initiatives, NSI is piloting a fraud investigation scheme which will offer third-party approval of investigative services and will hopefully encourage businesses to co-operate with police. It has the backing of the City of London Police and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

Holt continues: “The new scheme does not involve anything that is currently run by NACOSS or ISI. But it uses skills from all parties. As it develops, depending on the workload, we’ll borrow resources from NACOSS and ISI and co-operate on the standards required to drive that forward.”

The aim is to put together teams comprising NACOSS and ISI inspectors to offer new services to the industry as and when they are required.

New avenues are constantly opening up, says Sanderson, citing a venture still in the pipeline where the ISI has been approached to provide quality certification to a private prison. He said: “I would see, as part of the assessment team, that there will be a NACOSS man on board, looking at access controls, CCTV installations and the like, together with ISI personnel. So it gives us a combined resource — if NACOSS needs a team, they can pull ISI resources, and if ISI needs a team, we can pull NACOSS resources.”

As for how many inspections each client will have to undergo, there is no hard and fast rule as to structural changes. Both parties agreed that depending on the make-up of clients in terms of size, number of installations, personnel and other factors, it may mean that the expertise of the inspectors could be weighted more in favour of systems than guarding or vice versa.

Says Sanderson: “It could be two of one and one of the other, or more visits by one inspectorate and less by the other.” Holt adds: “All companies are structured differently, so the inspection programme is negotiated individually. The inspections will still go as ISI and NACOSS as two separate schemes. The technical side of inspections will have to be kept separate, but the quality management may be done as one. But if we were to do other schemes, say for the fire industry, that would be an NSI scheme. The NSI will be the umbrella company with branded schemes under that.”

One-stop shop

The value of the NSI is that it becomes a one-stop shop providing added value to the industry with new and existing inspection schemes. The combined size of the new organisation already promises much in terms of information and marketing, not to mention kudos.

The birth of the NSI has also been spurred on by market demand. Sanderson says: “More customers are looking for a one-stop shop. They are asking for more sophisticated, advanced guarding systems and increases in technology, and looking for security companies who can provide them. So security companies are themselves looking at their resources and the types of facilities they’ll have to provide.”

Sanderson cites increasing demand for facilities management style services, with more and more security companies providing functions which are not classical security. “That’s the way industry is going. If we’re not careful, we will not be able to address those activities. We want to be where the forward thinkers see the industry in 4-5 years time.”

Conflicting needs

But what about conflicts arising out of differing needs between the guarding and systems industries. One possible scenario is if police withdraw response to monitored systems, which would mean guarding companies have a lot to gain since customers would require a private manned response. But the flip side is that customers would become unhappy at having to pay for an extra service and may revert to ‘bells only’ systems.

Both Holt and Sanderson say this is not an issue and claim companies will get a reliable quality service and there will be no conflict between the two sectors. Says Holt: “If a systems installer has problems with police threatening to withdraw response, it is NACOSS’s job to work with that installer and sort the problem out.” But adds Sanderson, if the customer reverts to a bells only system, “that is the customer’s choice”.

However, in terms of modifying existing standards to cover both systems and manned guarding, Sanderson states: “With the reduction of police response activities, there seems to be a move towards the alarms installer being willing to provide a response service. At the moment that comes from a guarding company. So alarm installers say they now wish to provide a keyholding service but BS7499 is not flexible enough to allow that.

“So there is now a move towards developing a standard for keyholding alarm response. If the market decides that’s the way to go, alarms and CCTV companies may want to adopt that standard. And NACOSS will be able to provide certification to that standard.”

What is clear is the impact of standards is only just beginning to hit the industry. Rules cannot stay the same, says Holt, and you can’t prevent business from evolving. “It is better for both organisations to go forward together and make the changes together,” he says.

But while the push is for new schemes and new standards, the existing schemes will continue to keep their operational structure and fees unchanged. Holt says: “The existing schemes will continue and each have a requirement to break even. It would be wrong for manned services to subsidise alarms inspectorate or vice versa.”