It’s a team effort, the security director of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games told Professional Security in the run-up to the event opening.
That man is Police Scotland Deputy Chief Constable Steve Allen. Speaking on June 5, he said: “I think one of the great successes, albeit we are not actually at the Games yet, but one of the things that I am most pleased about is the way the various parts of the safety and security workforce have come together. It’s always been our plan from the beginning, reflecting on the experience down in London, of delivering the Commonwealth Games as what was described as a mixed workforce” – with contributions from the private sector; Police Scotland, the single force in the country since last year; the military (a last-minute but well-received part of London 2012 security after the highly-public shortfall in G4S guards); and what DCC Allen called ‘a small but not insignificant contribution’ from the Scottish Prison Service. He summed up: “It’s a real kind of team effort and all our planning has been about how we integrate this workforce and how we create the profile of roles and responsibilities in a way that plays to the strengths of the individual parts.” On the G4S affair in summer 2012, he said: “You would understand the kind of nervousness around the whole issue of safety and security workforces following the Olympics. Our plan was very much based on how do we provide reassurance, and assurance, we can deliver the numbers. We need to deliver various parts of our strategy, not least of which was the eventual kind of procurement approach we took to the private component: one for security, one for safety stewarding, and we ended up announcing [on May 29] the companies, 17 providing safety stewards and providing contract security. So that was one part of our strategy. Another part was to increase the range of roles police perform. We [police] have taken on a lot of the PSA [pedestrian or public search area] and VSA [vehicle search area] which the police probably would not in previous events taken on. Again, that was about reducing our reliance on the private sector.”
Going into more detail on what the uniformed military men and women will do at Glasgow, again it sounds much like London 2012: searches at some venue entrances, ‘with a longer lead in period than they had in London’, as DCC Allen put it. And as for use of prison officers, something novel in event security, DCC Allen said: “They will be supporting activity in those search areas, because obviously they bring some expertise with them; and they are providing some of their specialist dog units to support us.”
As for the tone of the Commonwealth Games, that organisers stress are a ‘friendly games’: again there are echoes with the Olympics that security must not be gained at the cost of athlete or spectator enjoyment. DCC Allen said: “We have been very thoughtful and working very hard on making sure our whole operation is proportionate to what we are trying to achieve. I have been really clear as the security director that what we are doing is create the environment in which everyone can achieve their ambitions; that it isn’t a security event, it’s a sporting event. And then when we are briefing our teams we have identified four things we are asking them to be, and that is right across the workforce” – non-security and security alike, that is. Those four things are: to be professional; to demonstrate that they are capable of whatever come their way, with the equipment and training they need; to be adaptable, ‘so they can respond to the needs of individuals, and respond to changing circumstances; and the final one, but by no means the least, so they can be approachable, so anyone feels they can approach a member of the safety and security workforce as their first port of call’.
DCC Allen agreed that Glasgow 2014 has much not unlike London 2012: “Absolutely. And we unashamedly have spent a lot of time with colleagues who put the London operation together and we are learning the lessons, while appreciating the Commonwealth Games is on a different scale, in a different country, a different set of competing nations, and a different threat environment. Obviously we would be neglectful if we didn’t learn the lessons and apply them where we can, but understanding the difference between the two events.” And as for the ‘threat environment’, DCC Allen agreed there was a spectrum of risks – again, not unlike London 2012 – from bag theft to terrorism to mitigate. “And as you would expect we have been working with law enforcement and intelligence colleagues for a long time. At one end you have the threat from international terrorism, you have the threat from crime in all its guises, whether it is serious and organised crime trying to get in on some of the contract activity, ticket fraud, all the way across the spectrum to pick-pocketing and disorder.” Besides planning in case of all those risks, DCC Allen named two others that ‘weigh heavy on us’: ‘how we facilitate people’s right to protest, because the Games present an opportunity for people to get publicity for a cause; they have the right to do that and so the challenge for us is how we enable people to exercise their rights without inappropriately impacting on the Games; that is another set of plans we have. And then the other thing which I wouldn’t describe as a threat or a risk but just one of the challenges for us is just the sheer numbers of people that are going to be in and around Glasgow, the pressure on infrastructure in terms of transport et cetera, and just the challenge that we share with the organising committee in Glasgow to safely move people around the city to where they want to be at the right time.” In another echo with London 2012, while such Games are on a once in a lifetime scale and complexity for a host city, Glasgow like London is used to securing regular big sporting and entertainment events, as DCC Allen agreed. He gave the papal visit in 2010 as an example. “But the basic principles and experience we have stands us in good stead.”
Lastly, Professional Security asked, how has the preparing for the Games been for him, personally? “You are the first person to ask. It has been a real privilege. I cannot wait for the event itself to be with us now. It has been a long time in the lead-up to it. What has made it a real pleasure is the quality of the people that I am working with, and the way in which they have proved themselves professional, able to work across organisational boundaries; they give me huge confidence in the ability to deliver this huge operation.” He ended by describing the public as part of the security team, in that people are asked to report anything suspicious they see, and to maintain vigilance. He said that people instinctively know what looks right and does not: “While we don’t want to alarm people, because they are completely safe when they come to Glasgow, we encourage people to report things to us if they think something isn’t right.” In another comparison with London, this is much like the Met and City of London Police publicity and poster campaigns, part of Project Servator, the new tactics to police the Square Mile, as featured in the May issue of Professional Security.
About Steve Allen: Deputy Chief Constable of Police Scotland since January 2013, he joined Avon and Somerset in 1985. He’s also served with the Met, and from 2010 was DCC of Lothian and Borders. He’s not got a long rest after the Games as he’s also the security and safety man for the Ryder Cup 2014, as it’s at Gleneagles in Scotland from September 23 to 28.
