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How well have security management and business continuity done during the coronavirus pandemic was among the questions in the latest OSPAs thought leadership webinar – as put by webinar founder and chair Prof Martin Gill to the four speakers.
They were, in the UK, Paul Bean, Head of Investigations, Intelligence and Economic Crime at Royal Mail; Alan Cain, former security manager, now working in resilience and Manchester chapter chair, of the Institute of Strategic Risk Management; and the founder of the ISRM last year, Dr David Rubens; and speaking from France, Bruno Sechet, founder of Integralim, who works in the food supply chain.
Looking to the economic future, Paul Bean suggested that there will be ‘winners and losers’, for example in logistics, and consumers’ buying patterns – instead of on the high street, buying online. For Royal Mail, that means more parcels to deliver, and the need to adjust its business. While not a security threat, it might mean that Royal Mail needs more staff to cope with demand; but if not handled right, that could be a negative.
Alan Cain, as someone who has worked in both camps, business continuity (BC) and security management, saw a practical difference. Whereas in a corporate, there might be few BC specialists, a corporate might have more security officers in a building or operation; sadly, and wrongly, that might be where a corporate might cut costs, rather than BC.
David Rubens was typically trenchant. Martin Gill posed a question by one of the speakers at the previous webinar, two days before, the American consultant Melissa Mack; what can be learned from the pandemic, for future crises? If anything?
David Rubens said: “We have to bring solutions to the table, not just when it is comfortable for us, but when the challenge is on.” He recalled being on Prof Gill’s risk and security management master’s degree programme at Leicester University, some 20 years ago. As in martial arts, David said, go to the basics, the fundamentals; sensitivity to the environment; ability to communicate; agility, adaptability; leadership and learning; spare capacity, if you have it, as that brings resilience; ‘but above all, be a learning organisation’.
The greatest gift to a risk or crisis manager is a near-miss, David went on, because a near miss allows you to check how good you are. “We should see this [the coronavirus pandemic] as a near miss and learn from it and if we do we are in with a chance. If we do not we go down a fool’s path.”
Asked by Martin Gill if security and crisis management have done well in the pandemic, David Rubens replied ‘up to a point’, adding that he did not think governments had (‘I think organisations have done better’). David said that he would have liked to have seen communities empowered to do more – pressed by Martin Gill to give examples, David said (covid) tracing and testing, and imposing lockdowns, and setting ‘back to school’ policies. Rather than having all imposed from the centre – not effective, and creating opposition.
As David went on, the pandemic is a unique crisis only in the time to recover; we are used to a failure of something, and its return in 12 hours or three days. “I don’t think anyone factored in seven months later not only are we not out of it, but heading into a second round of lockdowns.” Hence his call for communities as a resource to be used more.
Paul Bean said that BC and security have been recognised, and with a permanent seat at the top table, ‘to coin a phrase’. He questioned how much the commercial world has been brought into local resilience forums.
Alan Cain recalled the excellent work done by security people early in the pandemic, not recognised by the wider public. He recalled the difficulty that security professionals had in getting ‘key worker’ letters (to show if necessary to the police to explain their travel during lockdown weeks in the spring), compared with such workers in the NHS and the police, fire and ambulance service, whose letters came immediately; whereas SIA chief exec Ian Todd had to ‘fight’ for the same for security.
Prof Martin Gill wrapped up by asking each panellist what key change did each want to see coming out of the crisis. Paul Bean wanted mature debate leading to inter-operability between security and business resilience (his preferred term to business continuity, as he explained earlier in the hour).
Bruno Sechet said: “For me, it’s learning who your stake-holders are, and engaging and communicating with them, to prepare for future crises,” rather than only discovering who the stake-holders are, come the crisis.
Alan Cain spoke of the importance of exercising, and learning lessons from others, rather than having to make those mistakes yourself. David Rubens spoke of crisis managers as facilitators, not solvers, and the more facilitating ‘brings value to the game’.
Martin Gill summed up covid as a ‘learning exercise’: “What has clearly emerged from this is that there are great opportunities to learn, not just about this crisis but other ones; albeit this one has been testing, not least because it has lasted so long and led to so many changes.”
Next week
You can register for the free webinars at https://theospas.com/thought-leadership-webinars/. Next week, besides the regular Tuesday and Thursday afternoon ones, on Wednesday, Prof Martin Gill, under the umbrella of the Security Research Initiative (SRI, part of Martin’s consultancy Perpetuity Research) will launch the findings of the latest SRI study; of security as a career – how do people enter the industry (or is it a profession) and could more be done to make it attractive or even known to possible entrants, whether as a first or second career.
Visit https://perpetuityresearch.com/security-research-initiative/ for findings from earlier SRI projects, such as the buyer-supplier relationship; offender views on physical security; and ‘Bundled versus Single Service’ security.
