Posts Tagged ‘People’

Is Health and Safety such a dirty word?

Mention Health and Safety and Im sure those of you reading this are no different to the people attending our courses and cringe in dread.  But why? Health and Safety has been in the workplace for all my working life and Im sure most of yours. Admitedly I cant remember Health and Safety being big in the 80s or early 90s but now it is unrecognisable from the introduction on the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974. Read the rest of this entry »

We have been publishing since this time last year (2009) that Britain was at risk of a Mumbai style attack. Back in 2009 a report appeared that suggested that Police were concerned that there was a Terror Cell in or around London that had the capability and resources to carry out such an attack. The threat never went away during 2010 but its only now that so much emphasis has been given to this topic with plans afoot to up arm and train the Police in offensive tactics. Giving them fully automatic weapons and training them to fire and manoeuvre.

In the past few days security forums and websites have been saying its a matter of “when and not if” there is a Mumbai style attack in Europe. Lets not be complacent about this threat. Any City is at risk. It doesn’t have to be London, Paris or Berlin. There is on constant in all of this and that is how long is it going to take to respond? In Mumbai over 160 people were killed in the first minutes. Could officers get to the scene and find fix and contact the Terrorist in minutes? this is the big unanswered question.

We reported at the end of 2009 that there was concern over an active cell in London with the capability and resources to carry out an attack on the Capital. This seems to have hit the news over the last days and weeks and it has now been reported that the Police are to be trained in offensive firearms tactics.

We have reported that the Police and Military had no answer to such an attack and we still believe that reaction to an attack wont be quick enough. In Mumbai over 160 people were killed in the first minutes. The widespread panic that will ensue if such an attack takes place will make driving to the area of an attack slow to say the least. The instigators will have the upper hand and the casualty toll would be immense.

How will the Police be trained? having a gun battle with terrorists (if they get there in time) in Central London will undoubtedly mean innocent casualties. The Police currently have single shot facility on their weapons. If they were given fully automatic weapons or burst automatic capability then in a moving battle how will they carry ammunition?

These are indeed worrying times and we hope that there is multi agency consultation and not a half hearted attempt to counter the threat.

Intelligence agencies have discovered AQ plans to carry our Mumbai style attacks in Europe. During the attacks in Mumbai over 160 people were killed in the first mins of the attack.

Do we have an adequate response to such an attack? I believe that we don’t. The police couldnt react in sufficient numbers in that time and the SAS also could not mount any Counter Insurgency in that time. We have been told that armed officers who are already in the City area would be there to react.

When you see these officers walking round they are normally in pairs chatting to each other and not really taking account of whats happening around them. Any terrorist who carries out efficient Hostile Reconnaissance will note this and make the armed officers the first target. Terrorists will have fully automatic weapons where as the police only have single shot facility on the common H&K MP5.

2 Men (52 and 21) have been arrested and questioned over explosives offences in North Wales. The operation was mounted after a suspect package was found inside Vauxhall Cross, the home of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)  otherwise known as MI6 and a second was discovered in a South London sorting office.

This event has extremely serious security implications for the SIS. How did the package get inside the building? and why wasnt ALL mail scanned off site before being allowed into the building? Serious question have  be asked about the security culture at Vauxhall Cross. Mistakes do happen but something as foreseeable as this should never happen. As with all security if there is a reliance on technology alone things will go wrong and if there is a reliance on people alone then things will go wrong. Given the nature of the building and the work they are involved in then complacency should be guarded against at all costs and the balance should be between well trained motivated staff and good effective technology.

Well here it is. The SIA will introduce “Escorting and Disengagement” into the Door Supervisor syllabus.

This needed to be introduced, to ensure standard and professionalism throughout the industry. From what we have seen this is a half hearted and dangerous way to progress and is far far less than what needed to be introduced.

How there has been industry consultation is beyond us. Perhaps the SIA have spoken to “suits” but they certainly have not spoken to Door Supervisors on the front line. The draft document mentions Disengagement on one hand and non harmful methods of control and restraint and then further on mentions restrictive control and restraint.

How on earth can it be suitable and sufficient to have Door Supervisors doing Escorting and Disengagement? They don’t want to disengage, if needed they want to engage. Escorting is fine but what happens, when on a Saturday night in a Club in any Town or City across the UK, a fight breaks out. Escorting and disengagement have gone out of the window. Emotions are raised and now the DS has to ENGAGE and get people out. Its OK they have done Escorting and Disengagement…….

Our two main concerns are, What is going to happen when Escorting and Disengagement fail? and fail they will in some instances. Door Supervisors will have to resort to neck holds, prone restraint etc etc all of which have been PROVED to vastly increase the risk of death.

This is a dangerous precedent that does nothing to look after the men and women that have to do a very difficult and dangerous job every night of the week across the Country. The SIA has again sat on the fence, realised they have to do something and introduced a half hearted measure.

Secondly, who will deliver this new training? There are horror stories of Training Providers who WILL be able to deliver this but are far from suited. We phoned one who advocated use of basket holds, prone restraint finger locks etc etc. The first two have been PROVEN to increase the risk of death and why would you need finger locks? This is about Escorting and Disengagement.

Laughable.

Our second Weekend Door Supervisor course finished on Sun 20 Sept and was a great success. While a couple of people on the course recognised that relying on Public transport, especially on a Sunday was a pain the benefits of being able to gain a licensed qualification over 3 days, 2 of which are a weekend was priceless.

Most of those who attended said they would not be able to get time off to do the more traditional 4 Working Day course.

SPP Solutions would like to thank the enthusiasm and impeccable timekeeping of ALL candidates and wish them well in their future careers whatever that may be.

Our next weekend Door Supervisor course is being held at out Langstone Technology Park HQ over the weekend of the 30 Oct – 01 Nov 2009.

Call 02392 415540 or email info@sppsolutions.com for more information.