With so many famous people dropping by each year, not to mention legions of adoring fans, it's hardly surprising that security tops the Boardroom agenda for Wembley (London) Ltd – one of the group of companies that make up Wembley plc, and owner of the aforementioned classic venues.
Given that his biggest passions in life are sport, rock music and security, the job of safety and security manager couldn't have been handed to a better candidate than 38-year-old ex-Naval missileman Stephen Daniels.
"When I first came down to Wembley in November 1999, the company put me up in The Hilton Hotel (now The Plaza)," says Daniels. "Every morning I'd walk out of the front door and the Stadium's Twin Towers would dominate my view on the way to work. It gave me a real buzz. It still does to this day."
Daniels also recounts his interview for the job a month or two earlier, partly conducted in the Stadium itself on the very day that England were drawn to play Scotland in the play-off decider to see who would qualify for Euro 2000. "The England manager was there, and some of the players as well. I just couldn't believe I was here, among all my idols," adds Daniels – a man who exhudes an infectious enthusiasm that he's managed to graft on to his security team.
His credentials for the job are sound. The Barrow-in-Furness-born Daniels spent eight years in the Royal Navy, serving on three ships (his hat from HMS Cochrane sits proudly in his office to this day), at two shore bases and taking in the Falklands and the Gulf (just prior to Mr Hussein declaring hostilities). An excellent grounding, as the discipline applied in the armed forces made Daniels think long and hard about how you'd secure a building.
"I was due to leave the Navy back in 1991, and my thought processes went into overdrive about what I might do for a career." That's when his dreams turned to Wembley, where his father had once taken him to see his favourite team – West Ham United – play against the mighty Derby in the 1975 FA Charity Shield.
Learning the basics
Daniels knew he would need some tangible security experience before he could even contemplate applying to work in the shadow of the Twin Towers. He decided to apply for the post of security officer with a local contract guarding firm in his then home town of Sheffield. The experience was not a happy one.
Daniels opines: "I was posted to guard a massive steel works at night. I was on my own, with no radio and no telephone. I've never felt so isolated in all my life."
Clearly scarred by his first venture into the world of security, Daniels was then thrown an unexpected lifeline. "One of the regular officers fell ill, and I was re-assigned to the Don Valley Stadium," continues Daniels. "Back then it was called Sheffield for Health, a Council-run facility built to host the World Student Games. I was the first full-time security officer to be hired by the newly-appointed security manager."
Daniels actually spent his time moving between three sports and leisure venues – the Don Valley Stadium, Ponds Forge and the Hillsborough Leisure Centre, all of them partially built at the time – learning the basics of building and site security along the way.
He ended up working at the Sheffield venues for eight years, being appointed security co-ordinator in 1995 and, subsequently, group fire safety and security manager three years later. By now, Daniels had studied for – and successfully attained – two fire diplomas, the Fire Protection Association's 'Diploma in Fire Safety' and the Confederation of European Fire Protection Agencies' 'European Diploma in Fire Prevention Management'. Subsequently, he's also attained the National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety.
With the blessing of his then employer – Sheffield International Venues – Daniels had also served as a retained fire fighter in his spare time, giving himself the task of learning the rudiments of operational fire fighting. Combining safety and security.
Having applied for the Wembley job through the pages of SMT, no less, this enthusiastic professional had some very definite ideas about how he wanted to restructure the security function. In Daniels' eyes, health and safety and security issues are inextricably linked. "Before I joined Wembley plc, the company boasted a dedicated Health and Safety Department providing all manner of services throughout the whole Wembley complex. That finished when I came on board, and gave me the opportunity to do what I felt was right. Make the department a combined health and safety and security section."
True to his word, that's exactly what Daniels has done. Having been given the job of health and safety manager as well as security manager, he tasked himself with undertaking a complete review of his departmental and line management structures with a view to procedural change.
Beginning in early 2000, it was a review that also encompassed the physical and passive security systems serving the 11,000-seater Wembley Arena, the Conference Centre, the Exhibition Halls and Elvin House (an office complex just off Wembley Way that plays host to Wembley plc's group companies, plus a healthy mixture of other tenants).
Like any proper security review, that for Wembley began with a detailed risk assessment. What, you might wonder, would be the main threats and risks on such a site?
"Bomb threats and crowd order issues are part and parcel of life at any major place of assembly, let alone the most famous one there is," stresses Daniels. "Threats were 'phoned through to London Underground on the Friday before last year's World Cup Qualifier against Germany. They brought the Jubilee and Metropolitan lines to a standstill."
Making sure the all-new Safety and Security Department's structure was right from the word 'go' was a priority. Reporting directly to Stephen Daniels are a group of dedicated safety and security co-ordinators. Brian Birks is responsible for events in the Arena, Robert Jackson for site security and Jackie Molloy for Conference Centre events. Carl Baxter looks after the medical side of the equation. The co-ordinators are backed-up by a team of security officers, frontline stewards, medical staff and a Commissionaire – Billy Markham – who tends to the day-to-day needs of Elvin House. Every security officer or supervisor has a health and safety responsibility while on site.
"The safety and security officers' routine is a simple one," states Daniels. "They are on duty for three days, and off work for the following three in a constant shift pattern. They also rotate between day and night shifts. In this way they are fully up-to-speed with all aspects of how the site works on a daily basis."
Interestingly, Daniels has also instigated a good deal of in-house training for his officers, all of whom are able to make use of a CD-Rom-based training facility called the Zapp Zone. This contains timely 'refresher' modules on both health and safety and fire protection Codes of Practice.
"I'm making the officers true professionals," says Daniels. "They are salaried guards, all of whom have studied, or will be studying for the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health's 'Managing Safety' certificate, first aid qualifications and fire prevention exams."
Clearly, Daniels would never be able to source officers with that degree of experience from a private security company. "By doing what I'm doing, it gives me a small, dedicated team that can offer total building security skills. Officers can also be transferred to supervise Recruit Event's stewards when major concerts and conferences are taking place."
Daniels has done his level best to employ and train people with excellent attitudes and drive, he says, but not necessarily any traditional guarding experience. "I wanted a range of skills," he adds. "People skills, IT skills, safety skills. One of my officers, Sarah Dennis, has a degree in health and safety."
Fire as a potential hazard
Fire is always a potential problem on site. There might be a capacity crowd in the Arena for an event, and it's always possible that someone will drop a match or a cigarette in the wrong place. There might even be a pyromaniac on the loose! And, of course, more and more bands are using pyrotechnics these days to spice up their visual performance. All of which contribute to a potential fire hazard.
At every event, the company's Public Entertainments Licence demands that one or two fire officers are on site to provide first-line fire-fighting and fire safety capabilities. Many of the officers in the fire 'pool' are serving members of the London Fire Brigade.
Daniels wants all of his safety and security officers to understand compartmentation and fire resistance, and be able to act as fire officers at any given time. "The problem is that there aren't really any suitable qualifications out there at the moment," says Daniels.
He hasn't let that deter him. In conjunction with the Fire Protection Association, Daniels is designing a course to deliver on his officer's educational needs. "The course should be about ten days in duration. Five days will be spent on practical application and basic firemanship skills. Wearing breathing apparatus, working in smoke and fighting real fires," says Daniels. "The theoretical side would then follow on in Week Two, looking at structural fire protection, the basics of fire chemistry and insurance issues." Put that together with health and safety knowledge and security skills and what you have is an all-round professional. As Daniels puts it: "Officers who exceed the norm in this industry."
Passive and physical security systems
The site itself extends from the Royal Route (adjacent to The Plaza Hotel) on to Stadium Way through to Engineer's Way (which runs alongside the Arena) and the Stadium car parks. Aside from the Arena, Conference Centre, Exhibition Halls and Elvin House, it also takes in the CTS Studios, the Palace of the Arts and the Wembley Forum.
Stephen Daniels had to devise a complete security system encompassing CCTV, intruder alarms and access control. "When I arrived, the security systems were somewhat thin on the ground," adds Daniels. "The Arena didn't even have an intruder detection system in place, which I thought was pretty astonishing."
In the beginning, Daniels concentrated on CCTV. "My aim was that I or anyone else should be able to walk around the entire complex and have their movements monitored at all times," he says. "The car parking areas are particularly important because of the obvious threat from thieves and vandals. We also needed to cover all of the main buildings, and fit dome cameras to watch over the Arena's perimeter walkways and the main hall. This helps with event stewarding and crowd safety."
Using the experience gained from his time as operator, supervisor and then manager of the Control Room at Sheffield's Ponds Forge, Daniels drew up a CCTV plan in conjunction with safety and security co-ordinator Robert Jackson. The plan included the addition of a bespoke central Control Room in the basement of Elvin House, complete with seven JVC colour monitors linked to a 36-strong mixture of speed dome, PTZ and fixed cameras supplied and installed by The White Group.
"I wanted the CCTV set-up to be digital for a number of reasons," states Daniels. "The pictures are better, and incident retrieval is a whole lot easier and quicker. That's essential on a site like this. Digital technology is the future of CCTV, so we weren't concerned about having to pay that little bit extra for the privilege." The system is working well. As a deterrent, it has ensured no breaches of security since its installation earlier this year.
Intruder detection alarms courtesy of Guardian Alarms have now been fitted throughout the Arena, Conference Centre and Elvin House (some 118 PIR detectors in all), the Scantronic Master Alarm panels being housed in the Central Control Room. Four separate systems have been fitted, each linked into the Control Room via a Scope Pager system.
Daniels eagerly cuts in at this point. "What's good about the Scope Pagers," he enthuses, "is that the officers can patrol the site, lock up a facility, set the alarms according to a need and the Pagers will then activate should a detector sense an intruder."
As far as the access control system was concerned, Daniels didn't want anything with "moving parts". That's why he opted for a Tensor proximity card-based system. "We have deliberately programmed-in different levels of access and security," he says. "For instance, most members of staff can come and go as they please during working hours from Monday to Friday, but they wouldn't necessarily be able to gain access at weekends."
As an additional extra to the set-up, Daniels added a central server to the computer room such that access control can be determined from given PCs around the site.
The number of contractors and visitors on site can run into hundreds, even thousands. For ease of access, Daniels has issued regular main contractors (ie building services engineers) with ID cards produced by the team in the Control Room. They can then gain entry 24-hours a day to fix broken water boilers, etc.
"If those passes are taken off site by mistake we will cancel them to prevent entry. It's a good way of making sure that the contractors look after their ID badges," adds Daniels.
"The whole access angle has involved a steep learning curve for the Wembley security staff, but they're much more aware of their responsibilities now where visitors and contract workers are concerned."
Challenging the status quo
What of the future for this determined professional? Are there any more grand plans up his sleeve for when the new Stadium eventually opens to the public?
"We're all excited about the prospects for Wembley Stadium, but that's some time off yet," states Daniels. "In the short-term, I want to carry on promoting security alongside health and safety at Boardroom level. That's the best route towards this industry being seen as a professional sector offering a professional service, and attaining the status it deserves."
The only downside for Daniels is the fact that, these days, his role is mainly office-based. "I do miss the operational side of things." That'll be why he ventured into 'The Pit' at the Arena a few months back to do some event stewarding at Limp Bizkit's gig.
The Falklands. The Gulf. Security for a major entertainment complex. And, last but not least, face-to-six string with heavy metal Gods. Clearly, there's no task too daunting for Stephen Daniels.
Physical and passive security systems used at the Wembley Arena, Exhibition Halls, Conference Centre and Elvin House
CCTVSupply and installation
- The White Group
- 36 cameras (consisting of JVC Speed Domes covering the interior of the Arena and external PTZ cameras – static cameras are used on roofs and in prime areas that need protection from intruders)
- Two Visimetrics Octar 12-channel digital video recorders with integral 8 Gb hard drives
- Two additional 25 Gb hard drives
- 100 Base-T fibre optic interface
- Telemetry transmitter complete with 16 video inputs and two motion outputs
- 24-channel Simplex colour video multiplexer with ‘super spot’ output
- Seven 17” JVC full-colour monitors
- Two Regard 24-36 cameras, PC-based CCTV operating systems
- Two Pentium P11 400 Towers with 64 Mb RAM, 4.3 Gb hard disk drives and 17” SVGA monitors (plus bespoke 48-speed CD-Rom drives)
- Four-way communications hub
- Purpose-built CCTV monitoring console
Supply and installation
- Guardian Alarms
- Four separate systems installed and linked into the Central Control Room via a Scope Pager system (an auto-dial to the Central Control Room is also available from each intruder system)
- 118 PIR detectors in four venues protect the interior areas of the complex (including a mixture of 2.3 and 12 m detectors, each one having anti-masking alarms that ensure any attempts at blocking are detected right away)
- Controlled via four Scantronic Master Alarm panels housed in the Control Room
Supply and installation
- Tensor plc
- 36 doors around the complex are protected by a proximity card-based entry system
- 306 ID cards issued to date
- 27 access points ensure that staff are granted access to defined areas
- The system boasts a fire roll-call system – if any one of the five alarm systems activate this will generate a list of the occupants resident in each building
- The access control system can be used to inform all security staff who is working in each particular building and when. Timed access is programmable for weekend working.
Source
SMT
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