Profile: David Greer (chief executive, Skills for Security)

21 Sep 08

Northern Ireland is a fabulous country. There may be more than a little bias in that statement as Belfast is the city where my mother was born and raised, but anyone who has visited over the years will surely concur that the scenery is stunning and the people warm, friendly and hugely welcoming.

One of the nation’s favourite sons, David Greer, epitomises those human characteristics to a tee. As we sit down to discuss the next steps for the industry’s skills and standards-setting body, the softly-spoken, 56-year-old chief executive of Skills for Security does everything within his power to make me feel at home in his office at Security House. There’s English tea on tap. A comfy chair procured in my honour. A spare notepad. Even a few Skills-branded pens on the table in case my Security Industry Authority (SIA) rollerball expires.

Rather than jump straight into the nitty gritty, it was critically important for me to take a few well-traced steps back in time and learn something of what made this ‘Belfast Boy’ the successful and highly-respected figure he is today. Who educated the educator?

David is the son of Robert Kenneth Greer – himself the offspring of a farm labourer-turned-engineer – and his devoted wife, Doreen. “My father didn’t have any qualifications, but he went to night classes and studied for his HNC,” Greer recalls with a barely-disguised sense of pride. “In the end, he graduated to running his own engineering company, and that’s pretty much where I received my first education in security.”

The loquacious Greer continues: “Can you recall those images of RUC stations in the Province, and all the barbed wire and fencing used to protect them?” Oh yes. “It was my father’s company that manufactured plenty of those perimeter protection systems and installed them, too. He taught me that I could achieve as long as I wanted to badly enough and was prepared to work hard. He also taught me that attaining what you want doesn’t mean anything if you don’t display integrity and honesty along the way. That’s the ethos I want to underpin all we do here at Skills for Security.”

Learning from ‘The Troubles’

Speaking of the RUC stations, what about ‘The Troubles’? What kind of effect did they have on the Greer household? “They didn’t impinge on the family as such, although that period did present business opportunities and problems for my father’s company. There were significant difficulties to overcome. For example, you could only send a Catholic fabrication gang into a Catholic area, or Protestant engineers to Protestant estates. Suffice to say that employee relations were an interesting challenge.”

Greer’s father was a man brimming with ambition, his mother big on education. Both recognised the importance of using qualifications as a route to career progression and a better way of life. With massive amounts of parental support, Greer sailed through his Eleven Plus examinations and passed on to Grammar school. By the time he was 18, he’d amassed a hugely impressive 11 ‘O’ Levels and four ‘A’ Levels (in Biology, Maths, Physics and General Studies).

Greer had always enjoyed travelling “without having travelled far beyond UK shores” and so, post-exams – and with the phrasebook safely packed – he decided to take up a role in Italy for the best part of two years, teaching English to Italian nationals at the Callan International private school.

“To do a degree in Italy, lots of the text books were in English, so Baccalaureate students had to pass the Cambridge Proficiency Certificate in English.”

Greer lived in the small coastal city of Salerno and taught there as well as in Battipaglia. “There’s probably a bunch of Italians somewhere, all of whom speak with Belfast accents!” he quips, revealing that dry sense of humour for which Northern Irish folk are famed. “All they required was a native speaker of English. In those days trainers didn’t need any teacher qualifications [although he does hold the PGCE certificate]. I’m a believer in serendipity, you know. Me sitting here today in this job is also partly serendipitous, which is why I enjoy it so much and am so excited by it.”

High time to head home

Firmly entrenched in the land of fast cars, fine cuisine and impossibly beautiful women, Greer was deliberately confronted by the usual amounts of maternal emotional blackmail.

“My mother would tell me to stop messing around, come home and start my degree,” said Greer with a wry smile. “I was born when my mother was in her late 20s. She was constantly short of breath, having contracted rheumatic fever when she was young. I’ve always been sports-focused [Greer loves rugby, cycling and football] which necessarily meant I spent more time with my father, but Mum never complained about her condition. Fortitude and resilience were her middle names.”

Part technology, part education

Greer eventually caved in to familial requests and returned to Belfast in 1971, duly embarking on a three-year first degree BSc (Honours) course in physics (with electronics) at the famous Queens University. “At the time I was living at the bottom of the Ravenhill Road. I saw the UDA blockades and plenty of rubber bullets, too. I witnessed several explosions, but fortunately I was never near any of them.”

Not long after he’d graduated, Greer began to grow restless yet again. Having been abroad for so long, Northern Ireland now appeared “narrow” to him in terms of its outlook, and he determined to widen his horizons. “My time teaching in Italy gave me a bug for passing on knowledge so, in 1975, I left Belfast post-PGCE to go and teach physics at the President Kennedy School in Coventry.”

Two years later, Greer – a man who could never be accused of resting on his laurels – upped the ante yet again, taking a post as head of the Physics Department at the Byng Kenrick Central school in Birmingham, where he spent his final two years as head of science and IT.

“I’ve always been ambitious and driven, you see, with a vision of where I wanted to go next.”

From August 1982 through to July 1986, Greer served with Birmingham’s City Council as the technology and curriculum director for the DTI’s technical and vocational education programme. Responsible for college/school integrated vocational programmes, he was also afforded “an opportunity to run a major project that was part technology, part education and training. I was responsible for configuring and implementing secure technology networks, office automation and Wide Area connectivity for Birmingham’s colleges and schools.”

During this period, there was a part-time secondment to the University of Central England as a researcher in expert systems development. “We designed systems for the travel industry and for the English Tourist Board to enable the analysis of key success indicators at popular resorts, and their use in optimising resort development,” explains Greer, who wore a white shirt complete with red and blue tie on the day of our interview – the combined colours of his beloved Glasgow Rangers FC (although he’s also a fervent supporter of Manchester United).

In August 1986, Greer took up the post of head of information and new technology at Birmingham’s celebrated Garretts Green College. Here, he reorganised and upgraded the Information and New Technology Departments and looked after courses, the management of resources and technical support right across the institution.

A two-year stint as assistant principal at East Birmingham College followed. Reporting directly to the principal and Board of Governors, Greer was tasked with being an IT consultant to major customers in the construction sector, as well as taking charge of all information and learning systems.

In January 1991, with a Masters degree in Information Systems Design and Management under his belt, Greer moved on again to become information and business services director at Birmingham TEC. Promotion to business development director followed in April 1999, a role Greer held until March 2001. He explains succinctly: “I had to deliver all support services to business customers, including Investors in People and workforce development. There was a key responsibility here for research and evaluation.”

Greer also spent two years as a consultant to the Department for Education and Skills, developing the financial and information strategies and business processes demanded by the Learning and Skills Council – more of which anon – before it was born in April 2001.

All about Learning and Skills

Surely some themes must have developed when Greer was toiling on behalf of all these educational establishments and bodies?

“Yes indeed,” exhorts Greer. “Education and skills are a means to an individual progressing in life. It’s all about embedding learning in people. My experiences have taught me the key to success is to never stop learning. What can dissuade people is the place in which they’re learning or the context of that learning.”

A frown then appears on Greer’s face. “Where I do have an issue is this... How can 30% of children who enter adult life and the world of work after 11 years of schooling be unable to read and write properly? Tell me how that’s possible?” Business leaders affiliated to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) would certainly like to know the answer, given the woefully poor standard of grammar evident on an all-too-frequent basis in CVs submitted by school leavers and graduates alike.

Greer’s overt passion for the education and skills arena found a solid home between May 2002 and June 2007 with successive postings at the aforementioned National Learning and Skills Council. Having helped establish the organisation, Greer returned in a determined mood to help shape its development, in the first instance as national project manager.

Greer takes up the story. “We designed and implemented Employer Training Pilots to develop new ways of working with employers and their low-skilled employees. We had to devise the relevant processes and strategies to ensure that every aspect of the Pilots was delivered successfully. This included the development of policy and strategy, financial and management information systems, PR and communications processes and offering support to the local participating Learning and Skills Council.” Not much time to take a breather there, then.

As national programme director from June 2003 until November 2005 – and working with ministers and senior officials from the Treasury and the DTI – Greer expanded the Employer Training Pilots to 20 offices, in turn delivering a £350 million behemoth of learning. On top of that, he designed and implemented a Skills Strategy Programme Office to co-ordinate and support all aspects of Learning and Skills Council work in meeting the objectives of the Government’s skills strategy.

Probably wise to mention that David also developed the national joint working framework for the New Deal for Skills between the Council and JobCentre Plus. All-in-all, not a bad legacy for a humble boy from Belfast, is it?

Support To Business programmes

The perfect ‘training ground’ for Greer’s current role was fashioned between late 2005 and the summer of 2007, when he worked as director of Skills for Business. You can just see the synergy, can’t you? As national director, Greer took all Support To Business programmes under his wing, leading on the design, development, implementation and communication of the national skills strategy and policy for Train To Gain, Investors in People and the higher level skills (among them leadership and management).

What did it feel like to be accountable for budgets of more than £500 million per annum?

“It didn’t phase me,” replies Greer without a moment’s hesitation. No great surprise, that. After all, he’s only mirroring the laid back yet deadly serious approach to business exhibited by so many Northern Irish folk, isn’t he?

Greer was appointed chief executive at Skills for Security in May 2007. Having become frustrated with some of the politics at the Learning and Skills Council, he welcomed the Skills for Security Board’s approach.

“The job just felt right from the word ‘Go’. There’s all the opportunities around 2012, and being able to help shape relationships between the police and the security sector. We are tasked with overseeing a raft of skills and skills sets belonging to everyone from door supervisors and security officers to engineers. It’s a tremendously exciting challenge.”

There have already been cosmetic changes in the year or so Greer has been in charge. The Skills InSight magazine has moved from being a glossy A4 publication to an A3 tabloid format. Some key people – including Stefan Hay, of course – have moved on, while others have come in or (as has been the case with Bob Doyle) changed focus. The format of the National Training Conference is also morphing this year from a pure speaker-infused programme to one based on open debate.

Addressing The Home Nations

What about the next 12 months to two years at Skills, though? “There are a number of critical areas. One of my strategic priorities is to turn Skills into a genuinely four-country organisation. Most of what I see in terms of our reputation and visibility lies in England. Our big priority now is Scotland. We have a lot of work to do there. We need to determine the best approach and methodology and continue building relationships with key organisations like the Scottish Government. Once we have built our presence and reputation in Scotland we’ll focus our attentions on Northern Ireland and Wales. We must persuade people to help fund offices in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. It will happen with time.”

On the systems side, Greer knows that Skills needs to identify what’s there in terms of National Occupational Standards, qualifications and career pathways.

“With the build phase for 2012 looming, why aren’t there more security systems apprenticeships, for example? We have just successfully negotiated with the Learning and Skills Council for funding of Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications, and increased public funding to support more apprentices. Also, in line with demographics, we need to learn about adult apprenticeships for career changers.”

Lobbying is going on behind the scenes to introduce The Security Practitioner as an additional option in the Providing Guarding Services apprenticeships. “We have had discussions with just about every one of the major security companies,” states Greer, “and they said they would be happy to introduce guarding apprenticeships if we can have a good degree of flexibility. It’s all about securing public funding.”

Greer rightly acknowledges the potential legacy of The Security Practitioner. “Do we need CCTV’s version of this, or Cash-in-Transit’s version of it? We need to look at all of our sub-sectors. Skills has to represent every one of them,” asserts Greer in determined mode.

“Part of the change you are seeing now [in Skills for Security] is a real re-energising of – and investment in – each of the sector consultation groups and expert groups so that we are genuinely listening to, interpreting and articulating the skills needs of each of the industry’s sub-sectors.”

Continuing Professional Development

Greer concurs with SMT’s views on Continuing Professional Development (CPD). “I agree with you wholeheartedly when you say that the base point for a security profession must be CPD. Let’s look at demand, though. If membership of The Security Institute was one of the elements companies always looked for in recruitment or for advancement, individuals would seek membership. That would enable the Institute to bring in CPD requirements. You’d build a virtuous circle. There’s a key customer demand role here. This is the bit of the circle that’s missing at the moment.”

One of the necessary and vital elements of Greer’s role these past 12 months has been to travel a great deal and network. What salient lessons have been learned?

“I’m a natural optimist,” opines Greer. “First, we are seeing a shift in the systems sector. As it moves to IP-based technology, the people being recruited will have to possess an IT knowledge. It may be easier to graft security knowledge on to someone who is properly trained and qualified in IP systems than it is to teach an individual with a security background about IP. We are working with industry experts to include these new competencies in the latest review of the National Occupational Standards for security and alarm systems.”

In terms of management, there are signs of hope and bigger challenges, it seems. In the Armed Services and the police service, personnel are now being trained in the Human Resources aspects much more than they used to, but we are seeing a reduction in personnel entering the security sector from these traditional breeding grounds.

“Numbers have gone down over the last five-to-ten years,” says Greer, “and we already know there will be 600,000 fewer young people entering the labour market over the next decade. The demographic change is inescapable, and recruitment will inevitably become more competitive. That being the case, non-traditional recruitment policies must be central to our way of thinking.”

Greer suggests that the remainder of 2008 and then the New Year will be “very interesting” for the security sector. “Smart companies will invest their way out of this recession,” he asserts, “and then they’ll be able to expand when the economy picks up.”

The development game is a long one for security, as it was for IT. "What did IT have? What did it get? It ‘got’ the web. Every director interested in sales and marketing suddenly wanted to listen to IT people because they knew how to use technology in targeting the customer base. Security clearly doesn’t have that ‘silver bullet’ yet. We need to determine our Unique Selling Point and make it work for us in the same way that IT managers did.”

Maybe, just maybe, that USP is CPD.

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