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Apart from the live Eagle Owl that visited the NSI stand at IFSEC (and its attempts to put a deposit on the shoes of the visitors who got too close) the main topic on peoples' lips this year has been risk assessment.

And on that subject, I have to mention BT RedCare who launched a Risk Assessment Installer Support Programme. This is a guide to risk assessment and grading and an assessment survey form that the average surveyor can use. Installers can also pull down free on-line risk assessment from the BT website.

The RedCare survey form is four pages long and makes a good start on asking the right questions and leading us through the process of a risk assessment visit in an organised and well documented manner. But, perhaps a document of this nature should be finalised by consultation with the inspectorates and the insurance people.

Insurance companies must act now
My personal opinion is that it is just too important a document for BT to go it alone.

Whilst the list may give us the questions, it doesn't give us the answers. We have to work that out for ourselves and this is where the problems may arise.

As is normal on a survey, we have to be very much aware of the depth of the customer's pockets and it is no good over-specifying only to find that the customer cannot afford the all-singing-and-dancing system we have specified. On the other hand, if we now trim the system to fit the customer's purse and under specify we may fall foul of the insurance man and find ourselves at the wrong end of a claim.

Installers are treading a precarious path when it comes to risk assessment. On the good side I can see the logic of placing the onus for risk assessment on the installer or specifier. After all, he is the one who has to sell the system to the customer and it is he who is at the sharp end of this aspect of crime fighting with vast experience to fall back on. In other words, he stands or falls on his experience and reputation, or at least he did in the old days.

What we need is a risk matrix, one that will give us the levels for a specified system and a matrix that can and should move with the times and crimes. That matrix should come from the insurance companies.

  They are covering the risk so they should give us the information required to arrive at the levels of cover they will find acceptable. At the moment we have a situation where the powers that be are sending the defenceless installer out to assess a risk without the proper information. We have a saying for this in Yorkshire ... it's called arse about face.

The matrix could have some sort of calculation system where all the risk questions are listed. It would have a means of collating the answers and arriving at a risk level. Then we would be in with a fighting chance. After all, the insurance people have been assessing risks for years from a desk in the office.

All we need to do is take that one stage further and combine that desktop assessment with a site visit and we should have all the guidance and info we need to produce a reasonable and accurate risk assessment.

In the meantime we have a problem – we have all the questions and few of the answers and we could quite easily have a situation where we are setting our own risk levels, which are much different from those of the customer and the insurer.

Set the levels too high and we lose the job to a cheaper company, set the levels too low and the insurance company may not want to pay up.

We need that matrix or some equivalent from the insurance companies and/or the police for their own respective ends of the trade BEFORE we start taking on the role of risk assessor.

On the good side, I suspect that work is already afoot to provide and publish a suitable matrix so it is only a matter of time.

There is of course another option – put the new EN 50131 back for two years and that will give us all a chance to get the risk assessment training and info we need (not to mention the proper equipment to install). It will also give the insurance companies the chance to put a matrix of some sort together so that we are all batting on the same wicket. Then and only then do we stand a chance of doing the job right.

I missed this customer treat
I was totally browned off over one aspect of IFSEC … After much coaxing and persuading I managed to wangle a couple of tickets to the Pyronix party, and then through no fault of my own I had to miss it.

  As usual I hear it was a good do with Tom Jones, Lily Savage and Kylie Minogue look-alikes strutting their stuff. Also, as usual, it was well attended and a resounding success.

For my part I think it is a good idea for a manufacturer to give something back to the buyers and installers who have supported them over the year and it also makes good business sense. There are always those who would prefer to have the price knocked off the product and provide their own entertainment, but it doesn't work like that.

I see the logic of placing the onus of risk assessment on the installer ... but it’s a precarious path

A company has to make a profit to stay in business and when you turn out small objects by the millions, like PIRs, then a few pence on the price of one item can make a few £millions difference to the profit margins over the year.

Take that few pence off the price and it could mean a company facing ruin … so the logic is simple: make a reasonable margin now and when the profit is safely in the bank a good slice can be fed back to the customers in the way of a treat to say thank you.

In my book that can't be faulted.

They could feed it all to the shareholders and that might amount to a penny a share but if you think about it the sheer amount of goodwill generated by these treats far outweighs the loss to the shareholder in increased business next year.

Some would like the price off the product instead – they might save a couple of quid if they order in bulk. But constantly demanding cheaper and cheaper products is an excellent way for an installer to shoot himself in the foot … you can push the quality up or you can pull the price down, you cannot do both.

No, I think Pyronix and other manufacturers who give back to the customer in this way have got it right for both themselves and the customer. Now – about my invite for next year …

Guild raises £1/4 million
Speaking of giving back to the industry, I was chatting to Steve Neville of Bell Security Ltd of London (their stand was next to ours at IFSEC) and Steve was telling me about the Guild of Security Professionals (of which he is very proud to be the current Master). The guild raises money for charities and does a lot of good work for the security industry.

The London Guilds and Livery companies have been going for hundreds of years and are represented by people who have reached the very pinnacle of their trade and most of the old and respected trades have a Livery Company or a Guild of which they are very proud. Our industry's guildstarted in when 1999 Steve and a couple of his friends, Roy Ramm (former head of the flying squad) and John Purnell (an ex-police commander, now head of security at Tesco) were attending a dinner held by the Worshipful Company of Firefighters. At the toast to the Queen the question was asked: "Do we (the security industry) have a Livery Company, and if not why not?"

They decided to do something about it and set about recruiting thirteen founder members who sat down to agree on a set of ordinances and a business plan and the Guild of Security Professionals was registered with the Chamberlain of the City of London.

No 'old boy's drinking club'
They were warned that the setting up of a guild is a very serious matter and it must always aim to raise money for charity and do good work for its industry … It must never be allowed to become and old boys drinking club.

Things are going so well that they are now applying to be upgraded to a "Company without Livery" after a mere four years instead of the usual seven.

Membership reads like a who's who of the security industry with Steve as the Master and Lord Condon of Langton Green, QPM, DL as the Deputy Master. Middle Warden is Una Riley, who is the BSIA UK delegate to European organisations for the security industry and MD of Euro Security Systems. (Una has cut a very big swathe through what has been a very male orientated industry.) Junior Warden is Michael Welply, CEO of JSIC and Mayor of Thame Town Council. Treasurer is Henry McKay, formerly Executive Director with Securicor Plc and Clerk is John Maddock, formerly Clerk to the Master Mariners Company.

Currently the Guild has over 200 members and has raised over £¼million for charity from subscriptions and fund raising events. It is currently organising lecture evenings on various aspects of security and funding numerous projects within the industry.

As his final act as Master, Steve was due to present a minibus to a charity for deprived children at the Drapers Hall in June.

If your image of the principals of our industry is one of driving a well-upholstered car, pampered by a tribe of minions and spending every afternoon on the golf course then perhaps it is time to think again. Quite a few of them are doing a lot of work for good causes and not getting a lot of praise for it.  It's not rocket science ...
... but sometimes it does take a rocket scientist, according to this story I heard recently, which, I am informed, is true! Scientists at a world renowned aerospace company built a gun specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, and military jets , all travelling at maximum velocity.

  The idea was to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields.

American engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed trains.

Arrangements were made, and a gun was sent to the engineers.

When the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, blasted through the control console, snapped the engineer's back-rest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin, like an arrow shot from a bow.

The horrified engineers sent the scientists the disastrous results of the experiment, along with their designs of the windshield and begged them for suggestions.