Security Management Best Practice Feature
45
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exponentially, despite protestations by
the Government that police numbers
were reduced in order to meet the
changes witnessed within the criminal
fraternity. In the words of one minister:
“...from burglary to cyber crime...”
So, naturally – at least to my mind,
anyway – the private security sector has
had to pick up the slack, carrying out
tasks that were once the domain of
Home Office police constabularies. This
has been far from a painless process as
the private sector has struggled to
develop at the pace required, with the
fiasco of the 2012 London Olympic
Games – as described in the book –
serving as a prime example of how to
over-promise and then fail to deliver.
Evolution of the role
In this part of the book I also describe
the evolution of the security manager
who now has more responsibilities than
ever before. That isn’t a bad thing by any
means, but the commitment to engage
in unfamiliar areas such as crisis
management and cyber security
certainly requires senior management
support, self-confidence, training and
education. Such support from above isn’t
always forthcoming, though.
The second part of the book is
dedicated to security risk management
and strategic business awareness, which
is really what spurred me on to commit
my thoughts to paper in the first
instance. Unfortunately, the image of the
security manager held by business
partners during the last 20 years or so
has been that of a former police officer
or Sergeant Major who’s primarily
responsible for security officer rostering
and ID checks on staff entering the
premises. In all honesty, that view has
been quite close to the truth.
However, the roles and
responsibilities of the security manager
have changed dramatically, with
organisations in today’s world expecting
their security leads to completely
understand the intricacies of security
risk management, crisis management
and disaster recovery in equal measure.
It’s my experience that we in the
security industry, and particularly here
in the UK, have made such tasks more
onerous than they deserve to be.
Instead, we should be embracing and
emphasising the importance of security
risk management and its criticality to
the business, while in parallel calling for
recognition of the relationship between
risk and crisis management.
Put simply, the security manager must
be at the heart of all risk and crisis
management planning, including
ownership of the company risk register,
and should also be offered a senior
position on the crisis management team.
Strategic awareness
Another vital – and, without doubt,
contentious – area that’s covered in this
section of the book is strategic business
awareness. Unfortunately, the business
perception is that security team leaders’
approach towards budgetary
management at the end of every fiscal
year has resembled a scene from
‘Oliver!’ when the young boy in the
workhouse asks to have his gruel bowl
replenished, with the famous Mr
Bumble screaming :‘What? More, boy?!”
Replicate that scene of the classic
1968 film with the security manager
asking the chief finance officer to fund a
new CCTV system without providing
any form of business case for doing so.
This scenario has been painfully close to
the truth. This is where I would argue
that the security team is seen – and has
always been seen – as a cost centre, but
times they are-a-changin’ (as some guy
called Bob Dylan once sang for the first
time way back in 1964).
In the book, there are a number of
arguments put forward about
perception, in particular the view that
we’re still seen by business partners and
non-security team leaders alike as the
function that’s constantly asking for an
increased budget, but which fails to
understand the necessity or means of
business growth, while at the same time
continually pleading to be propped up
from a financial standpoint.
On that last note, unless security
managers and their team members
prove themselves fiscally by being
business enablers – and, yes, that may
well mean generating income – then the
security function will be outsourced on
a permanent basis. As a specialism, we
either keep up or we disappear. It really
is as simple as that.
Critical security
The third and final section of the book
is dedicated to what I’ve termed ‘critical
security’ areas, with the overriding aim
being to cover a number of key skills
deemed to be absolutely crucial for all
professional security managers and
about which they should have at the
very least a sound working knowledge.
This was a difficult process, because
while I hold my own personal views of
what skills are relevant to security
managers, they are of course my
opinions. In order to achieve a level of
Unfortunately, the image of the
security manager held by business
partners during the last 20 years or
so has been that of a former police
officer or Sergeant Major who’s
primarily responsible for security
officer rostering and ID checks on
staff entering the premises
professional objectivity, I determined to
seek the views of a number of
experienced peers in the sector and I’m
extremely grateful for the advice and
support that they’ve duly provided.
The easiest way to have approached
this part of the article would have been
to list and explain individual areas, but
there isn’t the scope to do so. Instead, I
will explain what I believe are probably
the most critical areas. In other words,
the subjects that may influence the
development of the professional security
manager going forward. Fingers crossed.
In my opinion, risk management is a
subject that has been neglected by the
security sector for far too long and, in
the book, I approach the definition of
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