Bespoke Griffin training for security officers, at first for Scotland, was aired by Security Industry Authority (SIA) chief executive Alan Clamp at the Security and Counter Terror Expo at London Olympia, pictured. Developed with Police Scotland and the Scottish Business Crime Centre, a trial of the training is proposed in the summer, then evaluated for a roll-out.
Briefly, Project Griffin is training for security and any other front-line staff in counter terrorism; such as to recognise hostile reconnaissance by terrorists (or indeed other criminals against premises) and what to do about a suspicious package or a firearms attack. Alan Clamp made the point that before the police arrived at Borough Market during the London Bridge terror attack of June 2017, it was private security managing that attack.
The SIA is reviewing the training content required for applications for its licences. Alan Clamp said he would like to see ‘comprehensive up-skilling across the board’; without the ‘barrier to entry’ being raised so high that no-one can become a security guard (‘something we need to be mindful of’). He said that the Police and Security (PaS) partnership in London was working well; and that the SIA was working well with the single police forces in Scotland and Northern Ireland; but around England and Wales, such working was ‘more patchy’.
Professional Security Magazine asked if Griffin training might be added to the four-day SIA training course required (among other things) for a licence application. If so, might something have to go out of the course, or might the four days be made longer. In reply, Alan Clamp said that a decision will have to be made whether what the SIA is developing [in Scotland] becomes compulsory, ‘in which case yes, it would have to fit in the four days’. He added that the SIA is reviewing the licence qualification anyway this year, ‘and there are I think opportunities to look at what is in there and perhaps to reduce some of it. For example there is quite a big section on the PSIA [Private Security Industry Act 2001] which may or may not be interesting, but not as relevant as Griffin training.’
Earlier in his talk, he spoke of how there was still a tendency when organisations were buying security to buy on the basis of price and not to ask enough questions about what they are buying. He gave some statistics; there are about 374,000 valid UK SIA licences, held by 324,000 people (the difference explained by the fact that some people may hold more than one licence, such as a guarding or door badge, and a licence for public space contract CCTV monitoring). There are some 834 approved contractors. He also made the case for the SIA as setting a barrier to entering the sector; about 80,000 (some ‘have a few goes’) licences have been refused or revoked, some due to ‘immediate threats to public safety’.
As in past years, the SIA is able to report from its checks high compliance – Alan Clamp reported 98 per cent; although he said ‘there is more we want to do in that space’. Having given the figures for badged security people, for example working at events and in shopping centres, he described that as a ‘massive opportunity’ in terms of counter-terror and reaction to an incident; besides the parts of private security that the SIA does not regulate, such as in-house staff. Stewards are regulated by the Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA); he said he recognised that in the last two or three years ‘we need to work much more closely with the SGSA to make sure that’s all joined up’.
For more on the latest thinking from and about the SIA and its roles, see the presentations on the SIA website from its annual stakeholder conference.
Note that since Alan Clamp’s talk, Project Griffin as part of a police re-branding is now known at ACT Awareness; and the Griffin Industry Self-Delivery option has been closed and replaced by ACT Awareness eLearning. For more visit the National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) website.
