Site Protection good house-keeping: Right: The 2017 Lone Worker Safety Expo conference at London Olympia. Below, Fenchurch Street, City of London Photos by Mark Rowe dingy at night; and poorly-placed cameras. If you have a run-in with a client, what’s to stop them going into the staff car park and identifying your car and doing some criminal damage? she asked. And what’s your office locking-up procedure - for example, does someone do a sweep to check that no-one’s in the ladies’ toilet? If premises are shared, who else is in the building? Might angry customers be lurking outside. Your security arrangements may be good, but do you have control over others in the building, she asked. Panel A panel of speakers to close the expo was of Louise Ward, a director at the British Safety Council; Craig Swallow of SoloProtect, who chairs the BSIA lone worker section; and Nigel Heaton, executive director of health, safety, security and environment at Ladbrokes Coral. 44 UNHAPPY ‘Despite its many positive benefits, technology will continue to create security risks as enterprising criminals seek out more and more ways to exploit developments to achieve their illicit ends.’ Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock. A need for Sharleen What’s the best crime prevention method for an office building? CCTV, alarms? No; Sharleen, a speaker told the Lone Worker Safety Expo conference earlier this year. The speaker was former police sergeant now trainer Christine Morrison, and she was speaking about the downstairs receptionist in a Clerkenwell office in central London. ‘She’s the gatekeeper,” Christine said. “You can’t get past Sharleen, because of the physical reception area. She’s very good at her job. Not very aggressive, but you don’t get past.” Staff go to her to get their access badges, the lanyards in different colours, and Sharleen makes people wear them, ‘so you can see who should be in the building’. Filter Staff have swipe cards for entry, while visitors have to sign in. Christine Morrison asked: if she goes into your building, can she get in; and wander? Some heads at the conference in London nodded. As Christine added, not all offenders carry a ‘Swag’ bag; that is, not all thieves look visibly suspicious. “You need somebody like Sharleen downstairs,” Christine went on, who filters out people and checks that they are expected where they say they are. Sharleen books in OCTOBER 2017 PROFESSIONAL SECURITY the visitors properly, and the person meeting that visitor has to come down to reception, to meet the visitor and escort them. And a system is in place likewise for building tenants to collect packages. That is not to say, as Christine went on, that a savvy person like Sharleen does it all by herself, without technology. She does have a panic button to press if she feels she ought to, and it’s tested, and she’s trained in its use. If she has to, she has no problem in retreating to a back office, that’s lockable, where she can call the police. Panic alarm As for panic buttons, Christine asked if people know where they are and how to press it. Are they tested - do people know what the noise means, and whether the response has to come internally, or if it goes to the police? And if there is an incident, is it recorded? The former Merseyside and Greater Manchester Police woman spoke of a problem of ‘panic buying’ of security and of how a lot of aggressive, ‘target-hardening’ physical security can put the fear of crime into employees and may put off customers: “That’s not the way to go.” Rather, she made the case for good house-keeping in an office - or as she put it, a lack of security being bad house-keeping. That could be poor lighting, so that car parks look Market overview Earlier, Patrick Dealtry - a co-founder of lone worker product company Skyguard, chairman of the committee that last year revised the lone worker safety management British Standard BS 8484 - gave an overview of the market. Echoing trainer and event organiser Nicole Vazquez, he listed policies and procedures; training in calling for help (and not forgetting refresher training); and compliance (as it’s no use giving lone workers devices, if they don’t use them properly, or at all). Apps for lone workers have come into their own, and have a place on smartphones, he said. He said lone worker products add value, recalling a head of security of a big engineering company that had people in Japan at the time of the earthquake and Fukushima nuclear plant catastrophe. The company didn’t know where the staff were or if they were safe. Hence a check call; but that as Patrick said raises who monitors the alarms, and what’s the training and management support. p www.professionalsecurity.co.uk p44 Sharleen <strong>27</strong>-10.indd 1 15/09/2017 20:36
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