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Skills for Security National Conference (England and Wales) 2009: Security provision in the public sector

03 Nov 09

In recent years, Advance Security has developed genuine partnerships in public sector contracts. Here, Richard Bailey explains why this area holds much untapped potential for security companies as a whole.

By Richard Bailey

For many years, we’ve concentrated on developing key vertical markets at Advance Security and, as a result, we enjoy a major presence in sectors such as defence, utilities, banking and finance, property management and distribution and logistics – to name but a few.

However, many of our greatest successes and developments over recent years have been in the public sector, until three or four years ago an area we had purposely avoided.

How and why, then, have our perceptions of the public sector changed, and why do we feel that, as an industry, the security industry may not be meeting the challenge of what’s now a rapidly developing sector.

Traditional impressions of the public sector

First, and to set the scene, I’d like to give you an overview of the impression we within Advance – and, indeed, the industry as a whole – once held of the public sector at the time when I first joined the business 12 years ago.

As part of my induction, I was taken to a series of local council sites throughout the North of England and Scotland. Without wishing to name specific councils and customers, these sites included housing blocks, community centres, offices and storage depots. In other words, they were fairly typical of contract portfolios in the public sector both then and now.

However, irrespective of the type of site I was visiting I found the same infrastructure – poor and dirty working conditions, CCTV and other equipment that had either failed or was badly in need of investment and in-house teams working alongside our officers (with a clear dividing line between the two).

When I enquired further I was told that pay rates were the lowest of our whole client base, that little or no partnership existed and that any innovation or development that we tried to introduce to the contracts was ignored or mired in red tape as we tried to gain approval.

As I began my career with Advance, I found that the sales process for new contracts was often run in totality by a single procurement specialist who would typically select the lowest price irrespective of bid quality or the potential for future development.

If we were successful in securing a contract, we then found that payment of invoices could take many months despite repeated chasing by both the accounts and operations teams.

I believe it was such experiences that created what quickly became a traditional view of this whole sector held by the security industry at large. That’s not to say that there weren’t individuals and contracts which bucked this trend, just that such examples in my experience and that of Advance tended to be in the minority.

The size and strength of the market

Before I discuss what we consider has changed, I just wanted to put into context the extent of the opportunity that exists within this sector for security companies such as ourselves as well as training providers, consultants and many other organisations within the security business sector.

While we seem to hear on a daily basis of proposed cuts in spending within the public sector, the size of the market today and the way that budgets have increased in the last decade is still astonishing. I would suggest that even after cuts, irrespective of the colour of the next Government there’s still going to be opportunities for all of us.

Spend by local authorities alone topped £150 billion in 2007-2008, with over £23 billion of that financing paid to external contractors. When you consider that the UK’s security guarding sector as a whole is estimated to be worth £2.2 billion in comparison, this puts into context the enormous potential that exists for all of us associated with the security industry.

In addition, if you look at other specific areas within the public sector you’ll find positive trends in terms of spend across virtually all categories. What’s more, the information is publicly available for all to investigate.

I’m sure that many readers of Security Management Today Online have been involved in PFI projects over the years where there has been an increase of 80%, while grants from the Government have doubled in size in the last ten years.

How many sectors have seen a growth in spend of over a third since 2004? We certainly know of no other within our client base. Are we as an industry taking advantage of what is a huge marketplace?

What has changed in the public sector?

What, then, has changed within the public sector and why?

First, the media focus placed upon councils, schools, hospitals and many other areas is extreme. This pressure comes from local as well as national press, 24-hour rolling news channels that have to fill many programme slots and ubiquitous pressure groups prompting analysis and investigation.

As a result, there’s an incredible pressure for better public services (often with an expectation that these will be delivered on a cost neutral basis).

In addition, the emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has seen many organisations – but particularly those within the public sector – place a greater concentration on areas such as the environment (where annual carbon usage reduction is an absolute minimum), the workplace (wherein all employees are expected to have access to a personal development plan) the marketplace (where customers expect suppliers to contribute to the ongoing development of their industry) and the community, where working proactively with a nominated charity raises the profile of good causes for both employees and customers alike.

This translates into specific contractual examples such as the development of core security skills alongside Continuing Professional Development for direct employees as well of those assigned by contractors such as ourselves.

There has also been a definite closing of the gap between procurement and operations teams, with key individuals working alongside each other in the selection of the appropriate partner.

Very often, we now find that the procurement professional within the sales and contract review process is providing the framework and infrastructure for a wider team to decide on the appropriate provider rather than dictating preferred choices on the basis of price alone.

As a service provider, we are now actively encouraged to develop close relationships with key stakeholders (such as the police, community groups and town centre management teams) in many public sector contracts. Again, this raises the profile, professionalism and standing of our teams, businesses and the security industry as a whole.

Finally, alongside the huge growth in spend has come greater scrutiny from Government and legislators, with many of our clients having to prove the worth and development of their contracted services on a regular and pre-determined basis.

Security contracts: what has changed?

What has changed in terms of security contracts? Well, from a contractual perspective we have also seen a marked increase in the number of security specialists and professionals appointed to key roles within the public sector. Often, those individuals will act as our daily point of contact, working with us to develop the service stream and selecting providers during the tender process.

Running parallel to this has been a decline in the preference for in-house staff – somewhat ironic given the current debate regarding the licensing of in-house security staff. In particular, we’ve found that it’s now our staff who are providing the public facing roles throughout our client sites within the public sector.

While clearly beneficial for all, this places us under far greater scrutiny from both an individual and collective perspective.

As well as providing more public-facing staff, we’ve also found that many customers have introduced supervisory and management into their requirements, with clear reporting lines and increases in accountability. We’re also providing supplementary positions such as receptionists and porters, further driving partnership and synergies.

This has undoubtedly led to increased efficiencies and similar increases in levels of service delivery as a result.

As partnerships have grown, we’ve found that many of our customers expect an ever-increasing volume of ad-hoc requirements. In previous years, such requests would have been mired in the appropriate approval system or poorly communicated, ensuring that resources were not readily available.

That’s not the case today, with schedules of work available often weeks in advance meaning that genuine short notice requirements can be met with the minimum of disruption to core service delivery.

Alongside this has been an ever-increasing requirement for specialist security services – be they manpower, training, consultancy or technology-based. Many of our customers within the public sector now expect their contractors to have the ability to provide a wide range of services with one phone call giving them access to a range of specialists.

If we cannot provide such services, is it not our responsibility to find appropriate partners with which to work on such contracts?

Threat and risk analysis: the key developments

It’s not just increased spend, the appointment of security professionals and better partnering that has changed. As every one of us is aware, the threat and risk analysis throughout commerce and Government has changed markedly over the past decade, and the public sector is clearly no exception to this rule.

Many of our customers have sites which form part of the Critical National Infrastructure in major cities throughout the UK. Sites which are at genuine and serious threat of terrorist attack – from a variety of global and national groups pursuing advancement across a range of issues that may or may not be linked in any way to our customers.

How our members of staff deal with individuals has also changed dramatically over recent years with stringent vetting requirements, training courses focusing on children and vulnerable adults and specific policies required to enable our staff to deal with such groups in a responsible and appropriate manner.

There has also been a disturbing trend for individual members of staff from within the public sector to be targeted by members of the public who have a specific complaint or issue that has not been resolved to their satisfaction. Again, it’s now our responsibility to protect such staff, not just within the confines of their office space but as they walk to their car or the nearest bus stop.

Finally, we’ve heard a number of prominent speakers over the last year or so promote convergence from a security perspective, and nowhere is this more relevant than the public sector. Here, the very nature of the services provided by our clients means they are considered a justified and viable target for both individual hackers and the organised cyber criminal gangs.

How do we as an industry look to work with our clients in the public sector to ensure there is genuine synergy between their physical and electronic security infrastructure?

Changing expectations of public sector managers

Alongside these changes, there has been a change in expectation from the public sector itself. The first point I would make here is that these expectations are not just placed upon the security industry but on UK plc as a whole.

From a training perspective, of course, we as an industry have a duty to continue the professional development of our staff, but the public sector now expects such development to be specific to the requirements of the threat and risk associated with them – and rightly so.

By way of example, our staff should understand the legal framework in which they can operate, have the skills sets to resolve conflict in tempestuous circumstances and, if necessary, the ability to use hold and restraint techniques previously reserved for the police.

It’s also now vital that we work alongside our customers in the public sector to develop policies that enhance the services provided, protect our own staff and realise security provision in previously unheard of areas such as employee surveillance and contingency planning.

Vetting to the minimum British Standards is often now insufficient for staff assigned to key areas, while detailed planning and testing has to be undertaken for a range of potential emergency scenarios which could involve many hundreds of staff across a wide geographical area.

Customers within the public sector now expect our staff to have a clear understanding of the importance of data protection, and the ways in which PCs and laptops can be used to infiltrate an entire organisation.

I mentioned earlier the emergence of CSR, and this is reflected in the minimum requirements for many new contracts. Customers across the public sector now expect their service providers to work to specific quality standards such as 18001 for Health and Safety, 14001 for the environment and 25999 for business continuity. These are benchmarks demonstrating commitment and that allow providers to site genuine partnership and alignment of policies.

In addition, a demonstrable track record in developing staff is no longer sufficient without due recognition from a body such as Investors in People, or a close working partnership with a recognised training provider (such as that held by Advance with Senate Training & Consultancy). This partnership has allowed Advance to provide an extended range of courses and services that would have been impossible had we simply delivered these directly.

The benefits from a wider security industry perspective are also strong. In turn, such disciplines and commitment help us to be recognised as the professional and progressive industry that we have become over recent years with the help of bodies such as Skills for Security.

Adopting a fresh perspective on matters

Having taken all of these points into consideration, where do we sit today in terms of public sector contracts and partnering? Well, it’s my belief that we are seeing the emergence of a fresh perspective in this field.

The tender process for contracts in now totally transparent, with detailed feedback available including scoring matrices and pricing comparison. This allows the industry to learn how the public sector wants its contracts to be structured. However, we have to request this data and be prepared to analyse the results. It will not simply be handed to us on a plate.

In addition, I’m sure many of us have experienced issues with bad debt and aged debt due to the current economic climate. Surely, there’s no industry in the UK on a more solid financial footing just now than the public sector, which should make this market a more attractive proposition to all of us.

Customers in the public sector now want to invest in appropriate levels of pay, ensure working hours are fair and equitable and invest from both a financial and partnership perspective in the overall infrastructure of security provision.

We are assuming key roles at all levels of the security operation, providing management and supervisory teams as well as officers who act as the first point of contact for members of the public in a wide variety of often challenging circumstances.

Through this approach, we find more and more that a genuine partnership emerges with an alignment of policies and improvement in services as a result.

One area that I would still question, however, is the interaction of the public sector with the security industry. I’m not sure as yet that the sector is represented in sufficient industry bodies and associations, but this will surely change as time progresses given the developments elsewhere.

Are we meeting the challenge?

Have we as an industry met this challenge? I would suggest the answer is not yet. As an industry, I believe that we still rely heavily on the European Journal when it comes to the sales process for new contracts.

In almost every other sector, we as an industry would attempt to connect with specific customers and contact points years before a contract is due to be tendered to understand the culture and requirements of the contract.

In the public sector, though, I would suggest that we often look to develop that relationship during the sales process, which can of course lead to issues with specification, the setting of correct pay rates and training requirements, etc.

Often, many months pass before a true understanding of the contract is gained, by which time it’s often too late to bring development and innovation to what is a basic service failing.

I also believe that we do not yet recognise the common areas between different sections of the public sector – how a training course provided to officers in an NHS Trust could also benefit staff in council offices, for example – or how business continuity planning can have similar challenges in the same environments.

Encouraging transfers of Best Practice

I also feel that we as an industry do not yet encourage the transfer of Best Practice between other sectors within our client base and the public sector, often treating contracts on a stand-alone basis. This is clearly another area which could bring enormous benefit to the security industry as a whole given the experiences that can be gained.

However, the market is changing and trends are encouraging. I believe that the public sector now holds enormous potential for the security industry. If we recognise this and work within the framework provided, this area could provide a significant base for future developments of our industry.

Clearly, what has been a successful and profitable fit for Advance will not suit everyone, but I genuinely believe that with a change of approach from the security industry towards the public sector and a recognition of the potential that sits within this marketplace, we may as an industry be very pleasantly surprised by the benefits we derive as a whole.