In taking a look back at the past year, SMT is not just indulging in a bit of nostalgia. Many of the things that happened during 2000, and are still happening, will influence the industry for many years to come.
The growth of the Internet and e-commerce, changes in policy towards alarm responses, a host of acquisitions and mergers and the formation of some new and influential bodies. These are just some of the more significant events we take a look at over the next few pages.
As with just about every other industry, the Internet has firmly established its place in security in all sorts of ways and many of these have come to a head during 2000. The growth of e-commerce requires tighter security over transactions. Similarly, as more and more companies share their corporate information across their sites anywhere in the world by electronic means, there is a need to control access to that information.
This has led to a change of emphasis for many security managers, as they try to get to grips with new technology and its security implications. It has also spawned a new job description – IT security manager. SMT has run a number of informative articles during the year to bring these issues out into the open.
At the same time, the Internet has given a huge boost to the potential of remote monitoring and looks set to become the major information route for all sorts of security systems. The ability to send CCTV images to a central station via the Internet eliminates the hard wiring costs that have often limited the scope of such schemes. With the Internet, there is effectively no barrier to distance between the surveillance site and the central station.
With the growth of remote monitoring come a number of opportunities to overcome the problems with false alarms and the need for better verification before police are called.
An alarming issue
Although the issue of police response to alarms did not begin in 2000, it certainly came to a head during this time. Ray Le’Monde expressed concerns in the January 2000 issue of SMT that the onus placed on the end user would be excessive and lead to a much greater cost for security.
In response, security manager Erik Barber suggested that the ACPO policy had in fact acted as a catalyst for the alarm industry to address the problems of false alarms – and that it had previously been complacent in doing so. He also called for the industry to take more of a proactive role in training end users as it is their misuse of the system that is at the bottom of many false alarms.
Adding fuel to the fire, the West Midlands Police withdrew response to alarms from commercial premises between the hours of 0600 and 1900 Monday to Saturday. This was quickly followed by an injunction from the BSIA, requiring West Midlands Police to suspend the new policy for 56 days, during which time a judicial review would take place.
This, in turn, led to a delay in ACPO’s new policy being published – while the ACPO response was, at the same time, seen as being a critical consideration in the judicial review looking at the West Midlands policy.
Thankfully, things are beginning to come together and for the latest developments in the saga, see the news pages in this issue.
Security Institute launched
This was the first full year of the Security Institute (TSI), which was launched at the AGM of the ASIS chapter 208 in November 1999. The Institute’s registrar Stewart Kidd told SMT: “TSI, I hope, will meet a number of clear needs in the industry. Namely it will aim to promote higher standards of management in the industry by bringing together practitioners at all levels; clarify, validate and compare existing qualifications and promote the professionalism of the industry to employers and recruiters, who will hopefully understand the need for professional security managers.” In February, SMT published a detailed interview with Geoff Whitfield, one of the Institute’s strongest advocates. Mr Whitfield explained the aims of the TSI and outlined the benefits it has to offer.
“It was felt that there was a need for an independent body that could validate individuals’ security expertise and make employers aware of the value and benefit of employing professionally qualified staff. Various attempts have been made to meet this need but none truly acknowledged the variety of backgrounds and qualifications which today’s security practitioners boast. If anything, the range and variety of the industry bodies and the qualifications they offer may well be confusing to those outside the industry,” he noted.
By March we were reporting the approval of the first 20 members of the Institute.
More letters to learn
The National Security Inspectorate (NSI) was also born from the merger between NACOSS (the systems inspectorate) and ISI (the manned guarding inspectorate). Adding to an industry already heaving with abbreviations, the NSI is an umbrella organisation under which NACOSS and ISI will operate.
Once the Government’s Security Industry Authority (SIA) is formed, NSI also hopes to be involved in forming the standards for the industry.
Data Protection Act
In March the 1998 Data Protection Act came into force, and in the same month a disturbing report by The Stationery Office indicated that over half of UK company directors were unaware of its implications for their businesses. Forty five percent of companies interviewed had not appointed a Data Protection Officer and 27 per cent had no one who specifically dealt with IT legal compliance issues.
Since then SMT has looked at various aspects of the Act and feedback we’ve had suggests that the industry is getting to grips with the implications for surveillance tapes and other security-related data. The problem still remains that many directors in organisations have yet to be persuaded to give these issues priority so that the security team can do their job while remaining within the law.
Acquisitions and joint ventures
The industry saw some major changes during the year, with some significant acquisitions. Like most industries, it seems the security industry is undergoing rapid consolidation with the big players getting bigger and bigger and seeking the economies of scale that such growth brings. Here are some of the highlights, not necessarily in the order they took place:
Bust-ups
While the number of acquisitions far exceeded the break up of companies, there were a few notable relationships that came to an end. In February the Security Watchdog resigned its Associate Membership of the BSIA, saying the decision was based on a desire to embrace smaller guarding companies that aren’t BSIA members. Underlying this, however, was a falling out between the two parties.
Security Watchdog director Terry O’Neil told SMT: We acknowledge the BSIA’s role in promoting standards within the security industry in general but also recognise that within manned guarding they are impotent to take corrective action when those standards are not being met.” In May we announced that the partnership between RemGuard and the Corps of Commissionaires had ended, though it never really got off the ground. At the end of the day, both organisations wanted different things from the partnership and what common ground there was wasn’t enough to keep them together.
Following a de-merger, Williams ceased to exist as its services and manufacturing operations were formed into separate companies – Chubb Security Services and Kidde Yale respectively.
Regulation please
In January the government announced plans to get a bill on security industry regulation into the Queen’s speech in November. Home Office Minister Charles Clarke told SMT: “We are consulting with various groups, with a view to pushing through security industry regulation in the next parliamentary year.” Throughout the summer the industry eagerly anticipated the publication of a draft regulation bill but then came the realisation that things had been delayed and we still don’t know whether regulation of the security industry will be included in the Queen’s speech, which has been delayed to December – after we go to press with this issue.
