News

Black Friday only arrived on our shores at the start of this decade, but it has already become a highlight of the retail calendar. Love it or hate it, Black Friday (and its online cousin, Cyber Monday) is here to stay, and if your business is taking part, you need to prepare your security so that customers and staff are kept safe. Black Friday chaos is not just an American problem Retailers in the UK first started to take part […]

Retail crime has increased by 40% across all categories. Likewise, spending on retail crime prevention has reached an all time high, hitting £1 billion in 2019 – four times 2016’s total. Whether you run a small boutique shop or manage a retail site boasting dozens of stores, you need to make sure that you are spending wisely on security. Here is my advice for how to best protect your retail business from theft, abusive customers and vandalism. Retail CCTV CCTV is […]

The British Retail Consortium’s 2019 annual Retail Crime Survey found very concerning trends, with crime on the rise across all categories, from customer and employee theft to staff abuse and cyber attacks. Retail crime statistics for 2019 Counting direct costs alone, crime cost the retail industry an estimated £900 million per year, up 28% from 2018. This doesn’t include indirect costs such as reduced efficiency, wasted employee time and the emotional and physical consequences of abuse. As a result, spending […]

Department stores, shopping centres, and other large retail sites are the biggest targets for theft in the country and amongst the most challenging sites to secure effectively. Theft prevention in a retail site relies upon being able to quickly identity suspicious individuals, monitor them and take action should they engage in criminal behaviour. This is a relatively simple task in a shop with a few aisles and single entries and exits, but when there are thousands of customers, multiple stores […]

We depend upon care homes to look after those who are most vulnerable. This includes making sure that residents and staff are protected from security threats such as vandalism, theft and abuse. While security guards still have a role in care homes, especially for main entrances and exterior patrols, residents and staff typically prefer less visible forms of security such as CCTV and access control. The benefits of CCTV in care homes Care home security must be designed to protect […]

In one year, 15% of all NHS staff and 28% of nurses experienced physical abuse A 2017 survey of NHS staff in England showed that 15% had experienced physical violence from patients, relatives or the public over a 12 month period. Accident and Emergency wards are amongst the most hard-hit, second only to elderly care in the number of violent incidents reported. Nurses fared the worst, with 28% reporting to have experienced physical abuse within the past 12 months, and […]

It’s no secret that one of the biggest challenges facing the NHS is the difficulty of meeting the increasing demands on health services while government spending struggles to keep pace. A less talked about but serious consequence is the cuts that have been made to security in hospitals and other medical sites. Local authorities are encountering the same issue and – as I wrote in my blog on the matter – a purely price-driven tender process has severe consequences on […]

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick recently shared disturbing figures on the number of crimes reported by MPs in 2018, which had more than doubled since 2017 and was already set to rise further this year. 342 crimes towards MPs and their staff were committed in 2018 and just four months into 2019 the number was already at 152. Polarised opinion on current political and social issues were blamed for this increase in criminal behaviour directed towards MPs and their staff, […]

Extremism is the Greatest Threat to Our Security – How Can it Be Stopped? The 2016 murder of MP Jo Cox and the 2017 attacks in Westminster which claimed eight lives are recent reminders of the deadly consequences of modern extremism from the far-right and radical Islam. Both incidents were lone-wolf attacks perpetrated by Britons. Such home-grown terrorism is particularly disturbing in this age of divided politics and resurgence of extreme, violent ideologies. While we may sometimes feel powerless to […]

Since 2010, local authorities have had their budgets cut by an average of 26%. In the same period, government spending on police is down 30% in real terms, resulting in 20,000 fewer police officers on our streets. These police cuts have made local authorities increasingly reliant on private security companies, but budget cuts have also made local authorities less able to afford private security, so who is left to keep the public safe? The only security companies left who can […]