Remote monitoring is one of the ‘hot’ security topics of the moment. Just look around you and the evidence is there. Remote monitoring centres are sprouting up all over the place, ranging in scope from ‘entrepreneurs’ building something in their back bedroom through to highly professional installations with serious money behind them.
Why is this happening? Does it make any sense? What direction is remote monitoring likely to take in the future? The simple answers are ‘cost’, ‘yes, mostly’ and ‘tell you later’.
Legislation (much of which is employment-based), a scarcity of good quality security officers and safety issues are all contributing to extra costs. Costs that customers are naturally reluctant to absorb without some sort of corresponding benefit. Couple this with an on-going demand for increased competitiveness, advances in technical security solutions – and a decrease in their costs – and the motivational forces are easy to see.
In this day and age, most commercial businesses and blue chip organisations are protected by a combination of people working with ‘electronic’ security and physical barriers in varying proportions. With the cost to the customer of a professional contract security officer in the south east of England now up around the GB pound 30,000 mark, one key requirement is to achieve the maximum effective protection with the minimum number of people. Conventional wisdom has it that both elements have to be together on the same site, but this doesn’t always have to be the case.
As ever, there are several conflicting pressures at work here. Deploying less people is not always possible, nor desirable. In addition, the upward pressure on employment costs contrasts with customers who are looking to reduce costs in order to increase their own competitiveness. For their part, manned guarding companies must adapt and invest in new services to meet the ever-evolving needs of a changing marketplace.
That’s not all, though. In spite of recently-published Government figures, the security threat against businesses is as large and as real now as it has ever been – the BBC Television Centre bombing, and last month’s attack on a Royal Mail sorting office in Hendon are proof-positive of that.
Lastly, security cannot afford to be seen as a drain on its customers’ profits. On the contrary, it must contribute to their businesses.
The old way of resolving cost issues has been to cut security company margins. In a customer-led industry, the effect of this has been to push margins too low to sustain development of the improved service levels that customers now demand, let alone invest in new services and cope with the costs of regulation. Costs that will appear well before the benefits. The present situation is little short of a downward spiral which, despite the best efforts of many manned security contractors, may drive them into becoming nothing more than contract managers.
What is needed is for the UK’s security companies to take the initiative and develop the expertise and ‘new’ thinking that will provide customer-based solutions aimed at reducing cost and adding value – while improving their own quality and margins in the process.
For ‘security companies’ read ‘guarding companies’, since it’s unlikely that electronic security systems providers will have either the knowledge base or the motivation to take matters forward.
Stating a case for remote monitoring
One such area where security companies can show their initiative and offer far better solutions for clients is that of remote monitoring. That said, what exactly is remote monitoring? It seems to mean different things to different people.
For instance, to an electronic security developer it probably conjures up images of an alarm receiving centre that also plays host to CCTV. To a manned guarding company more used to operating all manner of electronic gadgetry, it should mean anything electric/electronic in a building that can be operated from somewhere else. For many, of course, that means CCTV – but it can also mean fire panels, access control systems, heating, cooling, refrigeration, the monitoring of lone workers and so on.
All of these things and more can be monitored remotely off-site and, for many companies where the cost of installing their own systems and people may be prohibitive, it is indeed a viable solution to their security needs. That said, the benefits extend way beyond cost.
As an over-generalisation, electronic systems identify problems that humans then resolve. The point is that remote monitoring offers economies of scale by getting away from the situation of having one security officer waiting for something to happen on one site, replacing that scenario with one officer dealing with a multitude of sites.
Unlike an alarm receiving centre, the ‘something’ could be almost anything, and therefore demands a highly-competent systems operator with a skilled mindset. Benefits to the client will then come from the wide range of experience operators will achieve by dealing with many and varied problems.
To meet the requirements of tomorrow’s businesses, any concept of remote monitoring should be based on providing solutions to customers’ individual problems, rather than a narrowly-defined and limited range of services.
Ideally, a remote monitoring centre operation should be located in a protected space with excellent connections to data transmission networks and communications. It’s a highly specialised world, and must be backed-up by professional and knowledgeable management with the flexibility to provide the right solutions for their clients. It also demands competent, well-trained operators who possess the necessary interpersonal and IT skills for harnessing the technology and, therefore, protecting the client’s business.
Like most things in life, remote monitoring in its own right is not the answer. It must be connected to a mobile response service that can introduce the human response when there is a problem that has been identified remotely, but which needs a human presence if it’s to be finally resolved.
A physical presence
For day-to-day security applications, the real power of remote monitoring comes when it’s integrated with professional security officers and mobile response units operating on the ground. At the two extremes, a [business] property can be protected by people/physical measures only, or solely by electronic systems. The best solutions, though, will be those that balance the two.
Today’s economic pressures inevitably tilt that balance more towards systems than it does people, such that the ‘human element’ of the security function has to justify its place. Of course, there are many situations where only people can do the job but, taking a broad overview of the security industry, both cost savings and efficiencies may be improved when the two are made to work in harmony. It stands to reason that service providers in a position to offer both are going to be at a premium.
Two-way communications are critical to successful monitoring. The CCTV operator must be able to talk quickly and easily to police, security officers, mobile patrol team members and, most importantly, any intruders. After all, the primary aim is usually to protect business property, not to make arrests.
If the situation being monitored is a visibly verifiable alarm instruction, then the major response will most likely come from the police – even if a direct warning to the intruder(s) is effective. However, there will still be a need for key-holders to ‘clear up’ afterwards, and therefore some form of mobile response is a vital element of the overall security ‘mix’.
Before we look at how all parties can extract the best use from a remote monitoring service, it’s essential to provide a brief overview of the relevant standards covering the centres themselves. There are three in all – the ‘Code of Practice for Detector-Activated CCTV Monitoring’ (developed by the BSIA), ‘BS 7958: Code of Practice for the Management and Operation of CCTV’ and, last but by no means least, ‘BS 5979: Code of Practice for Remote Centres for Alarm Systems’.
The most effective of these is BS 7958, since it does establish sound operating principles. That said, the BSIA Code of Practice – which aims to draw installers and remote monitoring centres together in promoting best practice – will no doubt supersede it in due course. It has already been forwarded to the British Standards Institution as a draft for development.
BS 7958 was originally developed by the CCTV Users Group for monitoring CCTV in public places (town centres being an obvious example). It is seen by many as an effective measure of operating procedures in remote monitoring centres, looking at issues such as data protection requirements and ‘managing chains of evidence’. BS 5979, of course, is not really a standard for CCTV monitoring, focusing instead on the ‘structural integrity’ of a given building, and its vulnerability to attack.
Setting clear objectives
How, then, can we extract the very best use out of remote monitoring? Right from the word ‘go’, it’s important to set clear objectives, and examine the best possible ways of achieving those objectives for a given installation.
If you don’t feel the skills exist within your company, then look to employ a specialist consultant. Someone that’s not afraid to consider an integrated solution, and does not favour manned security over electronic security systems (or vice versa).
It may well be the case that you’ll need a brand new CCTV set-up. It’s always wise to enlist the help of a third party here. Consider the remote monitoring centre they use, as well – does it operate to professional British Standards, for example?
The Data Protection Act and the Human Rights Act are very prominent at the moment, with test cases on the latter being tried in the courts as we speak. The requirements of both Acts must be built-in to a remote monitoring centre’s procedures. Ignore this at your peril. A good remote monitoring centre will be able to advise the client on what needs to be done at a given premises.
It’s true to say that remote monitoring works best in certain situations. For those who desire a mix of manned guarding and remote monitoring, savings of over 100 man hours per week (ie over 5,500 man hours each year) can be made when it comes to manned security costs. That could relate to savings in the region of over GB pound 40,000 per annum. This would apply on ‘lone security officer’ sites as well as on larger sites where there may well be other security staff on duty. Here, remote monitoring would be used in a back-up capacity.
Remote monitoring will also work well for those who have an alarm system – or systems – prone to false alarm, and are therefore liable to be ‘struck off’ the police response list in line with the ACPO Security Systems Policy 2000. It will also be useful for those who need an alarm that, when activated, can be verified for some other reason relevant to the business. After 1 October this year, of course, all alarms registered with the police must be verifiable.
Last, but not least, remote monitoring will also work well for those clients who have manned guarding, but only because they need people on site as a deterrent. For example, let’s look at a situation where a given customer has a string of over 60 depots converting to remote monitoring. The costs are all-too-apparent. Of course the client will have to invest in CCTV systems, but many such systems are relatively simple to install and operate and, what’s more, cost around GB pound 10,000 each.
Independence is the key
A good many of the major alarm companies have developed their own remote monitoring centres. Of course, such outfits will tend to look at the subject from a traditional alarm perspective, also taking into account their own systems. In contrast, the ‘new breed’ of remote monitoring centres we are beginning to see now are totally independent, benefiting from the fact that their administrators are free to select equipment and operating procedures which are not product but customer-oriented.
As far as the customer is concerned, the major benefit should be that remote monitoring centre staff are thinking in terms of providing solutions to customers’ problems rather than a curtailed menu of ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ options.
In truth, operators should be thinking in terms of forming alliances with other technology providers that might be able to combine (for example) network provision, video transmission, CCTV and other installations into innovative new services much more relevant to today’s secure environment.
Such services will not have been possible before, because it’s the independent remote monitoring centre that enables these technologies to be combined in a solution that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
Patrick Dealtry is commercial director at The Corps, the specialist provider of manned guarding and facilities support services to end users.
