The tough trading conditions in the high street are well documented but, with theft and violence also on the up, the time has come for a radical new approach to security. Daniel Hardy, managing director of National Business Crime Solution (NBCS), explains the rationale behind an exciting new community based initiative that will drive change and create value through shared resources.

Well-known retailers like Mothercare, Maplin, Toys R Us, Carpetright and Poundworld have already disappeared in 2018 and, according to analysis of the UK’s top 500 towns and cities compiled by the Local Data Company (LDC) for PricewaterhouseCoopers, there were 5,855 store closures in 2017. Meanwhile, the number of new high street stores opening last year fell to 4,083, from 4,534 in 2016 and, according to the office of National Statistics (ONS), there have been 83,500 retail redundancies since the start of 2017.

Under pressure

While online retailing has definitely had an impact, with the British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) research finding that online sales of non-food items have soared over the past five years from 11.6 per cent of the total market in December 2012 to 24.1 per cent in December 2017, the internet isn’t the only thing to blame for the decline in the high street’s fortunes.

Theft and violence are also shockingly high and the BRC’s 2017 Retail Crime Survey reported that the total direct cost of crime has risen six per cent year on year to just over £700m, while the direct cost of customer theft has grown by £65m – up 15 per cent. However, it seems that one particular trend that is rapidly spinning out of control is the amount of danger that those working in retail face during their working day, with the rate of incidents of violence with injury doubling in 2017 to six per 1,000 members of staff.

It would appear that any attempts to buck these trends are simply not working, with the BRC also stating that retailers spent the same amount on non-cyber crime prevention in a 12-week period as they did the previous year. This is all occurring at a time when the police service has lost nearly 16,000 officers across England and Wales – the equivalent of all the forces in the south west of England. It has meant that police service’s ability to respond to incidents has been seriously affected and there is now a focus on prevention rather than prosecution.

Positive change

Within retail any attempts to deal with these issues have often focused on hiring manned guarding, which, although effective in certain circumstances, is not the whole answer. This additional expense, compounded by the level of crime, violence, higher business rates and increased footfall, has meant that it is financially unviable to keep some stores open.

It’s clear that there has to be a radical reappraisal of how retailers, the police service and specialist security providers work together. The seeds of change were sown with the Violence Reduction Strategy, a collaborative initiative pioneered by government, the BRC, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), the ACS, NBCS, the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and USDAW.

As a result, a major retailer, Mitie and NBCS decided to take this further by developing a new retail security model, which it named Community Guarding. Based on the belief that cooperation, knowledge sharing and pooled costs between retailers creates value through flexible resources with
a wider reach, NBCS believes that it could positively contribute to contemporary business objectives by harnessing the power of data collection, analytics and insight. This will, in turn, build increased capacity and engagement by linking large corporates, local small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), the community, the police service, councils and other stakeholders to counter the negative economic effects of persistent retail crime and antisocial behaviour.

Proof of the pudding

Although the Community Guarding concept sounded good in theory, the only way to ascertain its viability was to put it to the test. By partnering with the Police and Security Initiative (PaS), Sussex Police and a major retailer, a pilot scheme deployed ‘community guards’ across Brighton & Hove and surrounding areas working in tandem with the Sussex Warden initiative deployed by SWL Security ensuring all major Sussex conurbations received a community security resource.

Community Guarding uses existing Security Industry Authority (SIA) accredited personnel to act as high street security to support the local retail community – displacing criminality from not only retail premises but also from local central business districts. This is achieved through a two-tier security resource – a traditional static presence in high risk stores supplemented with high visibility patrolling in areas agreed by local police that supports their initiatives. In addition, the pilot sought to conduct evidential capture and support criminal and civil justice processes, and report on the presence of known criminals to police and the business community to prevent offending.

Six community guards spent the first two weeks of the pilot undertaking engagement with local businesses and supported local policing operations with a view to project launch at the Brighton Pride event. They maintained a high visibility presence in areas known to be at elevated risk and there was a positive reaction from members of the public, pleased to see an extra resource being put in the community. The team also built a good relationship with other local security firms, the Brighton & Hove Business Crime Reduction Partnership (BCRP) and
local police to share intelligence between the organisations. Their activities also included talking to the homeless community to offer help by putting them in contact with volunteer agencies working with Brighton City Council, which could help with food, benefits and housing issues.

Keep talking

Local Businesses in the patrol vicinity away from the major retailer who funded the initial proof of concept could request support from the community guard by contacting the Mitie control room known as Mitec. These deployments were supported locally by the use of the BCRP radio link so businesses could communicate, and the community guards assisted in arrests, searching offenders and diffusing volatile situations, rendering first aid and carrying out welfare checks, gathering intelligence and evidence of crimes and assisting members of the public.

Since the start of the pilot the community guards have reported over 1,500 incidents and 450 crimes, conducted 800 rough sleeper enquiries and detained 59 individuals until police could attend. In a two-month period in 2017, amongst many other activities, community guards arrested a man with five outstanding warrants, supported a vulnerable female who had escaped from hospital and intervened in a road rage incident that developed into a physical altercation.

Setting the standard

Due to the success of the pilot project, NBCS and its partners are confident that the same model could be developed and rolled out across the country. As well as the many benefits that it offers retailers and law enforcement agencies, it also represents a valuable opportunity for the security industry – and the manned guarding sector in particular – to elevate its position and create a new type of highly trained, skilled and service driven operative.

There’s no getting away from the fact that manned guarding suffers from an on-going image problem. This negative image also has commercial implications and there is a vicious circle at play, whereby customers don’t value these services highly enough and aren’t willing to pay higher fees. This means that the sector struggles to attract high quality individuals from a diminishing pool of talent due to the low rates of pay that operatives receive, which makes the security industry an unattractive career choice.

Problem solving

To address this, work is underway to establish a set of operational standards via appropriate bodies like the SIA, PaS and the NPCC. It is hoped that the development of a nationally recognised and accredited enhanced security standard for individuals will raise the credibility of the private security industry.

It has been mooted that the standard should include areas such as statement writing, evidential capture
and continuity, the use of body worn video, initial responder first aid training, an understanding of civil powers, dealing with vulnerable people, technology awareness and use, Community Safety Accreditation scheme powers, Project Griffin awareness and corporate accreditation through the SIA’s Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS). In addition, it has been suggested that trained and accredited communicate guards should wear a recognisable uniform, which should be consistent county, or countrywide.

 

In order for the Community Guarding initiative to be effective it needs widespread acceptance and a willingness to engage from corporate customers, support from the police service, government and the use of digital crime reporting methodologies for efficient incident management. With experience across these themes local police services need to support the proof of concept and improve the partnership working opportunity prior to any deployment.

The icing on the cake is that, by working in unison, retailers can lower individual corporate spend and get a far more effective service from higher calibre security personnel. It is truly a win-win situation that offers an excellent return on investment.

Food for thought

The response to the pilot project and the results achieved surpassed all expectations and it could herald a reversal in fortunes for the high street. However, this can only be achieved with buy-in from the private security industry, so send your thoughts, ideas and comments about the Community Guarding initiative to enquiries@nationalbusinesscrimesolution.com

For further information please contact Catherine Bowen on catherine.bowen@nationalbusinesscrimesolution.com, or visit www.nationalbusinesscrimesolution.com

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