We asked Neil Catton, MD CIS Security and Former Chair, City Security Council: How can we improve interoperability and partnership working in 2022? 

Speaking as a member of the City Security Council, there have been some significant steps forward in the collaborative approach, not only with law enforcement but between security companies and industry associations.   I think this can be improved upon further by the sharing of information and benchmarking between companies. For example, Health and Safety statistics and reasons for people leaving our sector, possibly. This would allow companies to measure their performance. 

I appreciate some of this could be sensitive but if companies created NDAs it could be achieved, or alternatively, an average of all company information could be used.  Whilst intelligence is important and a number of sharing applications are in place, security organisations should also look to share property information leaks, power issues, engineering and lifts. Learning from best practice could be shared, which in turn, will assist all in preparing employees for their role and increasing service levels and perception.

My experience of partnering with the City of London Police has been excellent this year. 

I believe that this does work elsewhere; to improve this and create a greater national feeling of partnership, private security organisations should be part of a national policing and private security forum.

Each has a great deal to offer in respect of training, knowledge, mentoring and resourcing. I am sure clients would buy in to these links, therefore driving security businesses to be part of a closer alliance with policing. There would need “buy in” from company leaders to make sure the effectiveness of initiatives reaches the front-line security professionals.

From my perspective, this is an open door and something that the private security sector would very much welcome.

The post Neill Catton CIS Security on partnerships in 2022 appeared first on City Security Magazine.

In autumn 2020, the City Security Council (CSC) opened its membership to all UK based security companies who are ACS approved or working towards the British standard. The CSC is now recognised as a leading and authoritative voice of the security industry and one that represents the interests of thousands of security officers.

The CSC has set out its objectives for this year and is well underway with achieving these. A key objective is to further integrate with the City of London Police (CoLP) through a joint communications platform. The platform will allow for real time sharing of intelligence and the uploading of information directly into the CoLP JCCR (Joint Contact and Control Room). The system is expected to go live in the late spring of 2021.

There is a strong appetite among the membership to work alongside the CoLP in operational objectives. This will include more access and opportunity to increase Project Servator deployments. In addition, the capacity to conduct a greater volume of joint test exercises is underpinned by private security and police hi-visibility deployments.

There are already plans to conduct hi-visibility operations and to demonstrate to those City workers hopeful to return to their offices, that their work environment is protected and a very safe place.

Security Officers have been working tirelessly throughout the pandemic in keeping businesses safe and effective. I think that they deserve a highly visual day of opportunity to show the value that they have been providing to the City of London work environment and hopefully this can be echoed throughout widespread media coverage.

People objectives include a recognition scheme for good work by security teams. There is a great deal of commitment from CSC members and supporters and we look forward to jointly recognising good citizenship every quarter. Training developments will focus on the uptake in existing platforms, with both ACT and Scan Training being promoted with a pledge for any new members that these should be encouraged for completion by all Officers within their organisation.

Looking to the future, we aim to increase membership by 50% this year and would welcome the night-time economy and in-house teams to consider application. Full details of membership are available on our website or by emailing enquiries@citysecuritycouncil.co.uk.

The CSC now represents 80% of the UK Security Guarding Sector. We aim to bring ideas to life, improve secured environments and promote the well-being of the most important people: our front-line Security professionals.

Neill Catton

Chairman,

City Security Council

www.citysecuritycouncil.co.uk

For further views on this topic, see related articles from our Police & Partnerships, Risk Management and Security Management categories.

The post City Security Council (CSC) sets objectives for 2021 appeared first on City Security Magazine.