The inaugural UCI Cycling World Championships was hosted by the UK this summer, bringing together the world’s greatest riders in what was the largest cycling event in history.

Over 8,000 athletes took part – more than the impressive Commonwealth Games – and over 1 million spectators turned out to cheer on their favourite competitors.

Some ups and downs were expected – during the road races and more broadly across public life – with significant road closures mobilised and protest activity being a constant threat.

However, thanks to robust pre-competition planning and multi-agency collaboration throughout the competition days, the event was a huge success with many now campaigning for the Tour de France to make a grand return to the UK.

The engagement between Cross-Sector Safety and Security Communications (CSSC) and Police Scotland in particular stands out as a fine example of effective partnership and coordination.

The CSSC disseminates critical information to organisations about upcoming events or significant unplanned incidents that could affect their operations. As a network, the CSSC keeps UK companies informed of direct and indirect issues which may cause business interruption, enabling them to activate their resilience plans effectively.

Over the two weeks of competition days, CSSC collaborated with Police Scotland to facilitate breakfast briefings, with daily intelligence bulletins shared to over 350 business leaders, including officials from transport, government, retail, hospitality, and real estate sectors.

Through such effective coordination, intelligence sharing, and planning, the UCI Cycling World Championships was delivered safely and memorably on the international stage.

Find out more about CSSC

Initiated in January 2013, CSSC Scotland exemplifies a collaborative endeavour between Scotland’s public and private sectors. Its establishment coincided with the lead-up to the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and the 2014 Ryder Cup, events for which it demonstrated effectiveness.

CSSC Scotland serves as a platform for the mutual sharing of safety, security, and resilience insights between public and private sectors. In times of events and incidents affecting businesses, CSSC provides an authoritative and clear voice to deliver essential messages.

For further information, please visit:

www.thecssc.com

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Two CSSC regions (CSSC North-East & Yorkshire and East Midlands) provide updates on how this partnership between police, local and national government and the private sector helps business by distributing authoritative safety and security-related information. 

The Cross-sector Safety and Security Communications (CSSC) North East & Yorkshire

The Cross-sector Safety and Security Communications (CSSC) North East & Yorkshire is a partnership between the public and private sectors in the seven counties of the North Eastern Region of England: Northumberland, Cleveland, County Durham, Humberside, North, South and West Yorkshire.

It is a two-way communications vehicle facilitating the information flow of important messages from key public services to local businesses within the region and enabling businesses to offer feedback to help shape the advice and guidance produced by public bodies in the future.

The key to this information conduit is the CSSC hub based at Kings Secure Technologies in West Yorkshire which operates as a dedicated point of contact between public and private sectors. CSSC North East & Yorkshire Hub is run by a Senior Management Board that oversees communications and an operational team that handles day-to-day activity and development.

The North East & Yorkshire region has support from key public and private sector partners, including police, councils, Environment Agency, Home Office and National Counter Terrorism Policing.

The recent newsletter of the North East & Yorkshire CSSC highlighted the work the group is undertaking, including promotion of ProtectUK and related counter terrorism training such as ACT Awareness E-learning.

Chairman Frank Andrew Davis (Andy) says: “As a region we are continuing to increase our network of ISLs and presence in multiple sectors. We continue to share information about threats that can directly or indirectly impact businesses and individuals across the region, and we are looking forward to letting more people understand the benefits that CSSC membership can bring.”

If you are interested in joining or learning more, please contact northeast@thecssc.com. You can also follow the work of this hub on social media @CSSCNEYORKS.

Cross-sector Safety and Security Communication – East Midlands Region

The Cross-sector Safety and Security Communications (CSSC) East Midlands Region covers the counties of Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire.

The group works in partnership with the county police forces and local organisations to provide proactive security, to help improve business resilience, and reactive security information, when there has been a major incident.

Chairman Andrew Nichols says: “CSSC continues to grow as a security-led initiative across the whole of the UK, with all the regions now well established. In the East Midlands our management board is driving to grow our membership.” He continued: “DCC Paul Gibson (who is one of our board members) is currently acting as Chief Constable for Northamptonshire, on a secondment from EMSOU, and we wish him well on this temporary appointment. Following the Manchester Arena Inquiry we will be focusing this year on supporting the recommendations in the report.”

The aim of The East Midlands CSSC is to reach as many people as possible through connections to businesses, local organisations, charities, government bodies and other related groups.

Their recent newsletter included articles on enhanced first aid training in the work place, the responsibilities for business in helping to prevent terrorist attacks, and violence in the workplace.

If you are interested in becoming a member of East Midlands CSSC, visit www.thecssc.com/about-east-midlands. Your feedback at any time is always valuable so if you have any points you would like to share with them, please contact: eastmidlands@thecssc.com.

The more people we can share and exchange information with to keep us all safe, the better.

The post Update from CSSC summer 2023 appeared first on City Security Magazine.

Cross-sector Safety and Security Communications (CSSC) continues to work in partnership to share authoritative security-related messages at pace to businesses and communities across the UK.

There is ongoing growth in the number of messages cascaded from the authoritative partners (who include police services, local and central government) and the total number of recipient industry leaders (the representatives for each industry sector who cascade the messaging within their sector).

Controlling this initiative is the CSSC Hub, which acts as an interface between those that have information and those that want to receive it. During 2023, the hub team is examining ways of streamlining the registration process, to allow applicants to self-register onto the messaging platform.

The major theme for this year, in conjunction with the City of London Crime Prevention Association (CoLCPA)  is to provide support and messaging for the prevention of ‘Violence against Women and Girls’ (VAWG). The partnership includes the Safer Business Network, domestic abuse groups, Metropolitan Police Service, British Transport Police and City of London Police, and aims to support this major national police initiative.

A total of 1,674 CSSC national and regional messages have been sent in the last eight years. The average number of messages sent during 2022 was 34 per month.

CSSC messages are currently sent to a national cascade of 3,692 Industry Sector Leaders.

The increased awareness of CSSC throughout the UK has resulted in a large number of registrations by local government authorities. 154 local authorities are currently registered with CSSC. These consist of County, Borough, City and Town Councils.

Click here to learn more about the CSSC and how to join

Read more updates from Cross-sector Safety and Security Communications (CSSC)

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The Cross-sector Safety and Security Communications (CSSC) continues to support crime prevention across the UK. There are three upcoming events where you can find out more about the initiative:

International Security Expo, Olympia, Stand A80: 27-28 September

Colleagues will be available on the joint City of London Crime Prevention Association, City Security magazine and CSSC stand. Come and learn more about all three. Register here.

North East & Yorkshire CSSC Regional Event: The Chambers, Leeds: 30 September

Both existing and prospective CSSC members are invited to this event. Hear from representatives from the Counter Terrorism Police and receive training that helps protect both your organisation and your staff.

The CSSC would like to thank Crisp Thinking for kindly supporting this event.

CSSC Annual Charity Dinner: 16th November, 2022

The dinner will be held in the beautiful ‘Old Library’ of the Guildhall, City of London. The menu and prices of individual seats, tables of ten, or half tables will be announced soon. Find out more from: admin@thecssc.com

Update from Eastern CSSC: Chair Guy Mathias FSyI, F.ISR

Eastern CSSC continues to hold and promote the National CSSC model covering the six East Anglian counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

The Senior Management Board (SMB) maintains its pivotal role for our 563 industry sector leads, associates and our members. It provides a body of highly experienced industry sector and government agency representatives and it is my pleasure and privilege to be Chair. I would also like to note the support I receive from my Deputy Chair, Ross McDermott.

We work closely with our local Protect and Prepare CTSA Policing colleagues and business crime unit  who assist us in linking to government and public body agencies.

Our Regional Security Forum was held in July at the University of Cambridge. We had some terrific speakers, with a keynote address from  Jane Gyford, Deputy Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Constabulary.

We remain very grateful to the support  provided by Dardan Security to Eastern CSSC.

For previous CSSC updates, please see our CSSC Archive.

The post The CSSC autumn 2022 update: three ways to find out more appeared first on City Security Magazine.

More than 140 trade associations are registered to the CSSC creating a potential reach of more than 12 million businesses and communities.

The recent Extinction Rebellion (XR) demonstrations in the City of London showed the speed of response and extent of the messages, with nearly 70 related messages sent in April 2022.

The aim of CSSC is to harmonise the sharing of information and it is fully supportive of related initiatives. For example, in the City of London, the recently launched CityIntel is a new joint communications platform developed by the City Security Council (CSC) that allows real-time incident information to flow rapidly between the City of London Police Joint Command Control Room (JCCR) and the CSC members who are based in the City. The CSSC initiative is aligned with CityIntel.

We welcome Mike Owens, the incoming Chairman for CSSC North-West, with thanks to outgoing Chairman, Marc Bannister.

There are CSSC hubs in each of the UK regions. In this edition, we include updates from East Midlands CSSC and CSSC North-East and Yorkshire from their recent newsletters:

Message from CSSC North-East and Yorkshire Chair, Andy Davis, MSc., CSyP, FSyI, CPP

2022 was supposed to be the year where we were able to recover from two years of COVID and return to what was mooted as the ‘New Normal’, in whatever form that took. Then war returned to Europe!

Few anticipated the unfolding actions of the Russian government against Ukraine, a neighbouring sovereign state, nor the horrors that continue to be witnessed by those of us lucky enough to have a free media upon which we can make informed decisions about what is actually happening. Our thoughts are with all those suffering because of this conflict.

What the conflict has also shown is the importance of accurate and timely information that can be used to protect individuals and organisations from harm. That demonstrates the relevance of CSSC as an accurate information source which businesses can rely upon and trust to be accurate.

As a region, our Senior Management Team met on the 1 April where we discussed some of the existing vacancies and agreed the appointment of three new members of the board to support sub-regional activities. Many thanks to everybody who volunteered their services for these positions and we look forward to working with the new board members over the coming months.

We look forward to welcoming new and old members to our next regional event which is being held in Darlington on 7 July 2022. We will be joined by the Police & Crime Commissioner for Durham,  Joy Allen as well as trainers from the regional Counter-Terrorism Police and over 25 businesses who have already signed up for this event.

Message from the East Midlands CSSC, Andrew Nicholls

The aim of the East Midlands CSSC is to reach as many people as possible through connections to businesses, local organisations, charities, government bodies, to name a few.

The East Midlands Region is now four years old and our membership continues to grow. There are more than 350 member organisations listed on our database, with a potential reach of over a quarter of a million! We are receiving some great support from the East Midlands Special Operations Unit and we will shortly be helping to launch a new business fraud awareness initiative across the region. Our success has been due to the support of the local Counter Terrorism Security Advisers and the work of our Industry Sector Leaders as well as the considerable commitment made by our board members, who give a lot of their own time to make things happen.

Read more articles on the CSSC 

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In May 2021, SecuriGroup Managing Director Russel Kerr was invited by CSSC Vice Chairman Don Randall MBE, to re-establish the Scottish Board to support the business community during COP26. In this article, Russel explains how the CSSC Scotland successfully supported the security of the conference.

Background to the CSSC

The Cross-sector Safety and Security Communications (CSSC) Scotland was established in 2013 ahead of the 2014 Commonwealth Games and Ryder Cup.

The aim of CSSC is to facilitate the two-way sharing of safety, security, and resilience information between the public and private sector so that businesses can make informed, appropriate decisions, and keep their operations running, as well as safeguarding their people, assets, and customers.

Setting up the CSSC for COP26

My first act was to appoint Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie as Co-Chair, and to underline the law enforcement and private sector partnership so vital to the success of CSSC.

The remaining board positions were allocated to senior representatives from Scottish Government, Scottish Fire & Rescue, SSE, NatWest, Vodafone, Forth Ports and INEOS.

The board checked the currency of the Industry Sector Lead network that is responsible for the onward cascade of messaging, which has since been strengthened by an additional 60 representatives.

CSSC Messaging during COP26

In addition to the distribution of authoritative and timely messaging via the CSSC Scotland Hub, the communication strategy had, at its core, a daily breakfast briefing on the run up to, and during, the UN Climate Conference.

The virtual briefings reached over 750 delegates and included attendees from as far afield as New York, Hong Kong and Singapore. The daily sessions, which ran consecutively for 20 days, were delivered by senior officers from Police Scotland’s dedicated Community Reassurance Cell.

During the conference, the CSSC Scotland Hub, which is facilitated by SecuriGroup’s Security Operations Centre, distributed over 70 authoritative messages across the Industry Sector Lead network, reaching up to 25,000 recipients. Their Software Development Team helped support the network by developing a real-time Protest Activity Map, utilised by members of the Scottish Intelligence Sharing Forum (SISF) throughout COP26.

Private security sector support during COP26

While G4S and Atalian Servest helped secure the COP26 Blue and Green Zones, the private security sector played a vital role in supporting Police Scotland in delivering a safe and secure environment across Glasgow.

SecuriGroup’s frontline personnel across Glasgow included uniformed response officers and covert ‘spotters’, equipped with their bespoke app. This facilitated the capture of time-stamped images and video clips with sound, each pinned to an interactive and filterable map. This provided users with a chronological activity feed with up-to-the- minute intelligence to help inform their own decision making.

Surveying the success of the CSSC during COP26

The police and security operation during COP26, reportedly the largest in the UK, has been hailed a success. Despite the event spanning almost two weeks, and tens of thousands of protestors and activists in attendance, only 70 arrests were made, with most activists being praised for their peaceful actions.

A survey distributed post-COP26 confirmed the initiative’s success, with over 89% of respondents indicating that the briefing content was very or extremely useful, and a staggering 100% of respondents said that they would recommend CSSC to a colleague.

CSSC Scotland was proud to play its part in support of this operation, and considerations are already underway regarding how the Communications Hub and activity map can be utilised going forward, and for any future events.

Read further articles on the CSSC

Read further articles on police and private sector partnerships

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This partnership between law enforcement, local and national government and the private sector helps businesses remain safe by providing information that assists them in developing robust resilience and emergency preparedness plans.

In preparation for London 2012, the private sector clearly wanted to receive timely and accurate safety and security communications and the public sector needed to share important information.

In response, in autumn 2011, a unique partnership was established between the London Police Services, the Home Office, the Greater London Authority, Transport for London, London Resilience, London First and 23 key industry and business sector groups.

CSSC Scotland was created in 2013 in the run- up to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in summer 2014, CSSC Eastern region was launched in November 2014 and CSSC South-East launched in August 2017. During 2018, with the assistance of NCTPHQ, CSSC hubs were created in the remaining regions of the UK. These are South-West, East Midlands, West Midlands, North-East, North-West, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The CSSC Hub

At the centre of the CSSC initiative is the “Hub”, which acts as the interface between those who have information – the police and other partner authorities – and those who need to receive it – the Industry Sector Leaders from the various business groups, trade organisations and major individual businesses.

Bulletins and information flowing from the authorities can be quickly shared with the relevant business contacts, who cascade the information through to their own networks. In the case of larger firms, this may well include nearby smaller businesses that do not have formal business continuity or security functions.

Industry Sector Leaders

The Industry Sector Leader (ISL) role is fundamental to the CSSC concept and structure. Each business sector is now represented by one or more ISLs and the successful delivery relies on having committed and effective ISLs. They share and disseminate safety and security messages and represent their specific industry sector or member organisation.

The CSSC project currently has over 3300 ISLs, Deputy ISLs and Associate ISLs spread across the UK in over 43 business sectors, who cascade information through their various business links, trade organisations and contacts.  More than 143 Trade Bodies and Associations are registered. The potential reach for CSSC messaging is in excess of 12 million businesses and communities.

Information Flow

The unique value of the CSSC project is that the information flow is two-way.

This arose from key lessons from the geographically widespread disorder in August 2011 and the large number of international terrorist incidents in recent years.

Through the Hub, real-time information can be fed back, supporting the authorities in their efforts and helping optimise the use of resources. There are also online resources to help businesses prepare to mitigate specific risks.

CSSC Conference Bridge calls

For serious or urgent incidents, at the request of the Metropolitan Police, or any of the recognised authorities, an invitation to all the Industry Sector Leaders can be sent, via the CSSC Hub team, asking them to join an urgent unscheduled telephone ‘conference bridge call’.  This can be achieved within an hour.

During the lead up to major events, a scheduled ‘conference call’ is arranged, usually timed for the day before. Numerous conference bridge calls have been held before major events and demonstrations. The MPS made use of these scheduled calls following the week of the G8 demonstrations to gain feedback from Industry Sector Leaders about the police handling of the public disorder.  This exemplifies the unique two-way flow of information within the CSSC.

CSSC Messaging

The CSSC messaging platform is used to send out serious and less urgent communications. These are prioritised as ‘Red’, ‘Amber’ or ‘Green’.  Authoritative documents sent by this method include NCTPHQ bulletins, MPS ‘Operation Bulletins’, NFIB threat warnings from the City of London Police, other police services, TfL and other government agencies.

Since late 2011 over 750 bulletins or advice and security articles have been broadcast, covering subjects such as counter terrorism, large-scale demonstrations, cyber crime, public order events, fraud, burglary, robbery and theft, as well as flooding alerts etc. from the Environment Agency and travel disruption advice from Transport for London.

CSSC in Numbers

During the years 2014 to 2018 the average number of messages sent was 9 per month increasing to 12 per month in 2019. However, since February 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic led to the authorities requesting CSSC to send a total of 103 related messages, with a total of 303 messages sent during 2020. This raised the monthly average to over 25.  During the year 2020 alone, CSSC broadcast a third of all the messages it had sent since 2014. This high output has continued in 2021 with an average of 27 messages per month.

Industry Sectors

The current CSSC industry sector structure follows the HM Home Office – Standard Industry Classification (SIC) designated sectors. This helps ensure the correct representation for each industry sector and to maximise the cascade of messages nationally and within each UK region.

Charitable Status

Since its inception CSSC had been run as a not-for-profit organisation and relied heavily on charitable donations for its running costs.  It achieved charitable status in September 2013. The charity was officially launched at a Gala dinner held at the Grange City Hotel on Tuesday, 15th October 2013. The principal speaker and co-founder was the late James Brokenshire MP, the Home Office Security Minister. Eighteen trustees are now established under the chairmanship of Sir David Wootton.

Website

The CSSC Project has a website for more general information, and for the process of registration with London or the regional hubs.

Graham Tucker,  CSSC  www.thecssc.com

The post Ten years of the CSSC appeared first on City Security Magazine.

 Several significant changes have occurred in the last three months within CSSC and are covered in this autumn update.

The CSSC is a partnership between police, local and national government and the private sector, helping businesses by distributing authoritative safety and security information.

Sir David Veness CBE has stood down as the co-chair of the CSSC Consultative Board. Sir David was one of the four founders of CSSC in 2011 prior to the London Olympics and has been an eloquent and important supporter for the last ten years. The whole of the CSSC family wish him a long and happy retirement.

Former Essex Chief Constable Steve Kavanagh has temporarily stood down as a CSSC Trustee having accepted a senior position with Interpol. All existing Trustees were re-elected at the CSSC AGM held in June.

Russell Kerr has taken over as the chair of CSSC Scotland after David MacCrimmon from Police Scotland was transferred from the Scottish Business Resilience Centre. David deserves immense praise for the dedication and professionalism he brought to the role.

Russell has added several new members to his board, including Gary Ritchie, the Assistant Chief Constable of Police Scotland.

Marc Bannister, the chair of CSSC North-West, has asked Michael Owens from the Bank of New York Mellon to be his deputy chair and also added Superintendent Zac Fraser from Greater Manchester Police to his regional board.

Andrew Nicholls, the chair for CSSC East Midlands, has added Chris Haward,the Chief Constable of Lincolnshire, to his regional board.

A total of 1082 CSSC national and regional messages have been sent, in the period Nov 2014 to July 2021. During July 2021 CSSC sent a further 22 national & regional messages. CSSC messages are currently sent to a national cascade of 3,245 Industry Sector Leaders. Over half that number have registered during the last three years, reflecting the remarkable growth of CSSC.

Graham Tucker

CSSC Project Director

Partnerships for Safer Cities

www.thecssc.com

The post CSSC autumn update 2021 appeared first on City Security Magazine.

The Cross-sector Safety and Security Communications (CSSC) initiative has continued to be prolific during the COVID-19 pandemic with a greatly increased number of authoritative messages sent to businesses across the UK.

Each message sent from the central hub in London is from a trusted source, including Central and Local Government Resilience and associated agencies, Metropolitan Police, HM Home Office and the National Police Chief’s Council, and has been verified and approved for circulation.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, there has been a substantial increase in requests by the authorities to send messages with a total of 303 sent in 2020. This pushed the monthly average up to over 25 for 2020.

As well as national messages, the central hub shares information on London initiatives that regional areas may find useful. Similarly, the regional hubs share best practice across the CSSC regions and within their own region. Local communities are reported to find this information very valuable.

Support for the CSSC can also be tracked with the remarkable growth in those registering as Industry Sector Leaders representing individual organisations, with well over half the registrations being made in the last 3 years.

And finally…. The CSSC– East Midlands Partnership was nominated as a finalist in the Outstanding Security Partnership category of the Outstanding Security Performance Awards (OSPAS). Congratulations to them!

Graham Tucker

Project Director

CSSC

www.thecssc.com

For further updates on CSSC, see related articles in our Police & Partnerships category.

The post CSSC increases messages during pandemic appeared first on City Security Magazine.

We have sent a total of 870 safety and security messages in the last six years. The police and other recognised authority bodies have made increasing use of CSSC throughout 2020 and we are now averaging 28 messages per month.

A new peak was reached when a total of 160 messages were sent in the three months of April, May, and June 2020. For the first time, we have recently used the versatile ability of the message platform, to send two messages to ISLs just based in the county of Kent. This was achieved using the geo-mapping facility. Although we have not been required to very often, the CSSC can also send messages to individual industry sectors e.g. just the ‘Transport’ sector.

Graham Tucker

Project Director

CSSC

www.thecssc.com

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