The latest in the Security TWENTY 18 series of events, ST18 Scotland, raised £3200 for the Anthony Nolan Trust. Some £1600 came from the raffle and ‘heads and tails’ game during the networking dinner on Monday night, April 30, before the conference and exhibition at the Hilton in downtown Glasgow on the Tuesday.
That money was doubled by an anonymous well-wisher at the dinner. Earlier, the ‘heads and tails’ game – this year turned into a ‘play your cards right’ contest with Professional Security MD Roy Cooper doing the honours by turning the cards – was won by Andy Jones of distributor Anixter, one of the ST18 sponsors. Andy guessed correctly that there’d be a card lower than a nine, and the luck ran out for Donie O’Callaghan, the other remaining contestant.
Pictured outside the dining room are Roy Cooper, centre, with Angela Gibson and Max Linnemann of the National Security Inspectorate (NSI), one of the 73 exhibitors. The NSI suggested the Anthony Nolan Trust in memory of Graeme Hazlewood, the NSI man who died of cancer in March.
Visiting the exhibition, installers came from as far as Peterhead and Inverness.
The ST18 conference chaired by Mike White had a Scottish theme. It opened with Gordon MacKenzie, the head of security services at the Glasgow city centre-based University of Strathclyde. He set out the changing scene of security in the higher education sector, reflecting general changes on campuses as unis seek to attract and retain students in a competitive market. Hence the recently-launched Equally Safe in Higher Education (ESHE) Toolkit, created at Strathclyde and funded by the Scottish Government. Separately, Strathclyde’s security operations manager Paul Smith, who also attended the conference, has written a training package supported by 13 of the 15 Scottish universities, that’s gone for external verification towards being offered as a campus security-specific qualification for security officers, to give such skills as first aid. As Gordon told the conference, security officers on campus are increasingly (rather than police) first responders, for traditional physical security incidents (such as bicycle thefts) but also more welfare issues, such as any anti-social behaviour in student residences. Hence the need for campus security officers to be more skilled.
Allan Burnett, of the Glasgow-based guarding company SecuriGroup, is these days based in London, but the former Scottish senior policeman said he was glad to be back in the city. He gave an update to the conference on counter-terrorism, and the part that private security can – and does – play. And Dr David BaMaung of Camor Training discussed the threat from insider activity, such as organised crime or single issue protest groups seeking to infiltrate a business, to gather intelligence to use or to better understand that organisation’s vulnerabilities, whether for theft (perhaps of intellectual property) or direct sabotage. Only once the risks are acknowledged can you mitigate and prevent them, he suggested. He recommended a holistic approach, and developing an insider threat corporate risk, and an ’employee lifecycle approach’ from recruitment and vetting to an employee’s leaving. Exercising (of a realistic scenario) is critical, he added, to identify security weaknesses and bringing in besides security such departments as HR, training, business continuity, IT, and facilities. The aim; a strong security culture.
Event sponsors also gave updates to the conference about their products: Hanwha Techwin (their Wisenet WAVE video management software), CSL (on the upcoming general data protection regulation, GDPR), Hikvision (their latest video and related products) and Anixter (on construction products regulation). ST18 Scotland sponsors were Anixter, Hikvision, NetVu, Hanwha Techwin, Seagate and CSL.
The next ST event is ST18 North, at the Majestic in Harrogate on July 5. For more about ST visit https://professionalsecurity.co.uk/security-events-and-conferences/security-twenty-home/. Whether you’re an installer, security manager or just someone who wants to get up to date about private security, it’s free to attend ST; we just ask that you register online beforehand, to help gauge numbers for the catering. Each ST event has tea and coffee and bacon butties for the earliest arrivals, mid-morning drinks and biscuits, and a hot buffet lunch. Register for ST18 North at https://professionalsecurity.co.uk/security-events-and-conferences/security-twenty-home/north/.
It was ST’s second visit to Glasgow, having first been in September 2017 to the same venue. This year the Glasgow and Dublin events have swapped places in the timetable; ST18 Ireland is now at the Red Cow Moran Hotel in Dublin on Wednesday, September 5. ST18 ends on November 7 as in previous years at the Park Inn Heathrow.
