Latest Guard tour system News

How to manage your environment
posted on 24/07/2001

THE BSIA HAS PRODUCED A guidance document for its members on how to develop an environmental management system (EMS). The Association says an increasing number of clients are requiring manned security companies to have an EMS before they will be considered for a contract. According to the BSIA, it isn't difficult to develop an EMS, and most companies will already be aware of the environmental issues involved, but they may not be documenting the process in line with relevant British Standards. Links Manned Security - Special Report Directory: BSIA... [more]

Guarding industry urged to reduce staff turnover
posted on 24/07/2001

THE MANNED SECURITY INDUSTRY must reduce staff turnover before it can think about improving margins, BSIA chairman David Cowden has said. Cowden believes that the only way for the guarding sector to raise profit margins is to improve service quality, and he sees a reduction in security officer turnover as crucial to raising standards. He said that the turnover rate, even among the bigger companies in the manned security sector, is too high. Cowden cited a BSIA survey from 1997 which found that staff turnover across the sector was more than 75%. He told SecurityPark: "Unless that churn rate goes down, we can't make progress in service quality." Click here to read article on manned security industry margins Keith Francis, sales and marketing director for Vision Security Group, said both manned guarding providers and their clients would benefit from 'menu pricing'. Fr... [more]

Read up on safer door supervision
posted on 23/07/2001

Book Review: Safer Doors (written by Andy Walker) Safer Doors is a new training handbook for professional door supervisors. The book is intended as a standard reference book for door supervisors throughout the UK. The 384-page pocket-sized book has been written by PC Andy Walker of Humberside Police, who runs the Safer Doors Project established to raise standards in the door supervisor industry. The author has more than 10 years' experience registering and training pub and club door supervisors all over the UK and has worked with all the major educational and industry awarding bodies in this field. Walker has done a great deal of research on current leisure security procedures, and this is reflected in the book, which provides loads of useful guidance and information for anyone involved in the security of leisure venues. New British Standard The book, says Walker, covers all of the subjects found in the UK's best registration scheme training courses for... [more]

Service is key to margin of success
posted on 23/07/2001

FOR YEARS THE MANNED guarding industry has talked of the need to raise profit margins, yet despite all the talk, margins in the industry remain notoriously low. BSIA chairman David Cowden, who will become executive chairman of the association when current chief executive David Fletcher retires next April, reckons that manned security companies need to change the way they pursue contracts if they are to raise quality of service, and with it profit margins. Cowden says: "The industry has got to stop being busy fools, and stop chasing volume at any price." All too often, clients insist on paying a low price for guarding services, forcing guarding companies to cut costs. "They're forced to keep on looking at prices; they go to guards' wages, then the level of supervision and management," says Cowden. "Unless that churn rate goes down, we can't make progress in service quality." - David Cowden, BSIA chairman Instead of cut... [more]

Manned Security - Special Report
posted on 23/07/2001

THE PRIVATE SECURITY INDUSTRY Act has generally been welcomed by the manned security sector, which hopes regulation, and licensing of security officers, will improve the credibility of the sector. But BSIA chairman David Cowden warns that regulation on its own won't dramatically improve manned security standards. In an article in our Special Report, Cowden emphasises that guarding providers must reduce staff turnover and raise quality of service if they are to improve profit margins. Many within the manned security industry anticipate that regulation will also lead to private security playing a greater role in providing support services for police. In some parts of the country, security officers are already carrying out public patrols. We report on the progress of a Neighbourhood Wardens scheme recently launched in Ashington - one of only three rural warden schemes in Britain. Local authorities are increasingly turning to contract security companies to provide security and CCTV mon... [more]

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