Resolution agenda

At least in part, the solutions provider blue chip clients know to be OCS Resolution Security first saw the light of day as a direct result of Security Industry Authority (SIA) regulation. “Licensing was a huge financial challenge for us,” suggests Dai Prichard, now chairman of the company but, pre-merger, the founder and majority stakeholder in the firm he created – Resolution Security.

“We had built our company on sound operational ability rather than its buying power. At the time, we were operating pretty much at the edge of our financial envelope, and the regulation costs being mentioned by SIA chief executive John Saunders appeared daunting. Consolidation within the industry was always going to happen anyway.”

Licensing and regulation would subsequently dominate our conversation for the next three hours, Prichard working in tandem with his colleague – OCS Resolution Security managing director Richard Fenton-Jones – on airing their views concerning (among other things) in-house licensing, enforcement of the Private Security Industry Act 2001, the Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) and multiple licences.

Although fully supportive of the Government’s praiseworthy desire to ‘clean up’ the guarding sector, both Prichard and Fenton-Jones are seemingly at odds with the Regulator in respect of several issues.

“On a personal level, I would love to see widescale enforcement happen now, but it’s probably too early,” states Fenton-Jones, an MBA Graduate of Bath University who readily admits to being “a very different animal” to his chairman. “The Regulator is still playing catch-up with the licensing process. We discovered only last week that all of the personal documents belonging to one of our regional managers had been lost in the system post-application. We only discovered this when he contacted the SIA direct requesting his passport. The point is that we thought this application was part of the backlog. The $64,000 question is: How many of our remaining applications aren’t being processed when we think they are? There’s no feedback mechanism to inform us.”

Prichard then winces when the subject of multiple licences rears its head. “This really indicates how inflexible a big bureaucracy like the SIA can be,” he comments with weary resignation. “There is an agreement with the Regulator that a second licence for an operative already registered for the security officer licence, and who wants or needs a second licence covering, say, CCTV monitoring is attainable. The additional licence should cost £95. However, there’s no system in place that allows you to pay that sum directly to the SIA. They have to charge you the standard £190 and then refund the difference. They don’t say when that reimbursement will be forthcoming, and exactly who’s going to receive it. Frankly, this is an imposition on our good nature.”

Auditing for the ACS

The temperature at OCS’ London offices rose even further as Prichard – a self-professed “Army lad” who attended The Royal Military College at Sandhurst during the early 1970s before joining the Welsh Guards – brought up the subject of auditing for the ACS.

“To obtain ISO 9000 certification,” asserts Prichard, “the National Security Inspectorate would audit against a quality system. It takes four days at a cost of roughly £600 per day. Inspection for the ACS entails a nine-day check and two days for ISO. That’s a total of 11 days, but at a cost of £720 per day. Very nearly three times the price. To be honest this is outrageous. Surely there has to be a more cost-effective way of doing things?”

Fenton-Jones is quick to add weight to these sentiments. “Unfortunately, this is not an industry wherein improvements are genuinely being realised as a result of regulation. What we have at the moment,” explains this highly analytical former relocation manager, “is exactly what John Saunders said we wouldn’t see. In other words, the existing industry with licensing just slapped on top. There are a number of well-known contractors who genuinely wanted to see change, differentiation and the creation of a security guarding profession. Sadly, there is little or no evidence that this is happening.”

According to Fenton-Jones, OCS Resolution Security has recently bid as part of the tendering process for the security contract covering a major retailer’s offices and distribution centres. The client asked OCS to “fill in the blanks” on a letter that would then be sent to the SIA such that the end user in question could “check out the security supplier”. They demanded proof, and understandably so, that OCS Resolution Security is exactly what it says it is – an SIA Approved Contractor. The actions of a switched-on customer that wants to know how many officers are on the books (currently over 3,500 in OCS Resolution’s case) and how many of them hold full licences.

“This is a typical corporate concern’s expectation of what the Regulator should be able to tell them, but we know that the SIA cannot deliver on this. The only information the SIA holds is the detail we have provided to ACS assistant director Andrew Shepherd. They do not record the employer details of each officer applying for a licence. That’s not part of the process. It never was, and was never intended to be as individuals are prone to move from one contractor to the next. It remains the case that we are not meeting the needs of clients who want to verify what they are being told by their suppliers as part of the selection procedure.”

For his part, Prichard used to sit on the SIA’s Stakeholder Committee along with other industry luminaries including Nigel Churton of Control Risks Group. “It was great,” opines 54-year-old Prichard with perfect diction, “but when we were all dismissed by a letter from one of the [then] chairman’s assistants I was left speechless. What an extraordinary way to alienate so many senior figures in the industry? The impression was that the SIA felt proud of the fact it didn’t have any security industry practitioners on its Board, or within the senior management team. It still doesn’t. That’s a serious mistake.”

Traditional ‘route to market’

When Dai Prichard speaks people invariably pay attention, and with good reason. The former Major’s affable demeanour masks a sharp business brain. Having resigned from the Armed Forces in 1984 to join Blackwell Green Services – part of a Lloyds of London brokerage established to advise foreign Governments on matters of national security (including the instruction of Special Forces, no less) – he started Resolution Security from scratch in 1988.

“Originally, I didn’t have any capital and so the business really started up as a specialist security consultancy and training company. As the lone employee,” he continues, “it was difficult for me to establish credibility because there were other consultancies who’d been operational for much longer and had built a recognisable client base. It’s a hard grind. You are either out of the office desperately trying to win the next bit of business, immersed in your current project or chasing clients for payments that will hopefully balance the books. Then the whole cycle begins again.”

The impression was that the SIA felt proud of the fact it didn’t have any security industry practitioners on its Board, or within the senior management team. It still doesn’t. That’s a serious mistake

Dai Prichard, honorary chairman, OCS resoloution security

To ease the burden somewhat, Prichard – who read naval architecture, or “ship science” as he puts it, at Southampton University in the early 1970s – joined forces with an old friend, Andrew Prendergast, who owned a Scottish-based guarding business by the name of Profile Security. They soon launched a London office and pitched the company’s services to top end corporate clients (a precursor, it turned out, to the hugely-respected Resolution model that would follow in its footsteps).

Three years or so later, though, the two friends’ interests diverged. “Only owning a third of the business made it difficult for me to fulfil my ambitions,” recalls Prichard, “so I negotiated to take out my one-third share of the company, which was then turning over about £4 million. I ploughed this into Resolution.” Together with Dougie Blackford – his trusted friend and business partner, and a former Sergeant Major in the Grenadiers – and former Burns Security managing director Martin Rackstraw, Prichard created a hugely efficient £24 million turnover guarding and specialist security business serving prominent clients including BP, JP Morgan, Rolls Royce and Lord Rothschild. The company also worked for the historic Royal Palaces and the National Trust, in turn building a superb reputation.

With licensing on the horizon, though, the three partners realised they would have to bite the financial bullet and look towards a bigger company willing to act as a parent for their business. Prichard knew many of the players at OCS... The deal was struck and OCS Resolution Security opened for business in January 2004.

For Prichard, the ensuing two-and-a-half years have been “highly enjoyable” as he no longer has to run the show, but instead is able to concentrate on “a lot of other things in my life”. Just as well, in many ways, because Dai Prichard CPP is a man in much demand.

Prichard is a director of the Board of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (in addition to serving as chairman of the Chamber’s Security Section). “We run seminars on topics like business resilience.” The Marlborough College-educated professional is also a member of the Board of Management of the National Security Inspectorate, and chairman of its Manned Services Section.

He’s a Fellow and Board Director of The Security Institute, and sits on the British Standards Institution’s GW3 Committee.

That’s not all. Prichard is an active member of ASIS International’s UK Chapter 208, a member of The Company of Security Professionals and a member of the Steering Committee of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Security Information Service for Business Overseas.

Topping it all off rather neatly, he’s currently chairing the Risk and Security Management Forum as well. “One cannot say too much about the Forum, though. Our meetings are conducted under Chatham House Rules.”

Relocation, relocation, relocation

It emerges that Richard Fenton-Jones never attended University because he “didn’t fancy it”. It was 1977. Already “too much in love” with the girl who would become his wife to be apart from her for any length of time, Fenton-Jones decided on a two-year stint “at the wrong end of a tape measure” training to become a chartered surveyor. He later “drifted” into the pressure cooker world of the estate agent before being approached to join a relocation company that was part of the PHH Group. At the time, this was a fledgling business sector.

By 1987, Fenton-Jones was at Hamptons Relocation and, little more than a year later, found himself sitting in the managing director’s leather chair. “We were tasked with helping people who had moved jobs to move with their jobs,” he states. “Back then, many organisations like the Bank of England and BT were shifting their staff from central London to out-of-town locations. It was an exciting time. We sold our service to the corporates, who then offered it to the individuals moving on.”

1994 witnessed a management buy-in. The company became Rowan Relocation. It was the fifth largest relocation company in the UK, branching out to complete international moves, review cost differentials and provide culture and language training pre-departure.

Fenton-Jones left the business in 1996 to complete the aforementioned MBA. “I desperately needed to prove that I had transferable business skills,” he explains. “It turned out to be a really enjoyable experience.”

He enrolled on a two-year fixed course with regular attendance every second weekend, and completed some “odd bits of consultancy work” to keep the wolf from the door.

By a strange quirk of fate, one of the chaps on Fenton-Jones’ course was running a small security guarding business in Bath, and he ended up helping out for three days every week. In the end, however, Fenton-Jones did more than just assist. He oversaw an acquisition that realised a £1.6 million turnover business. He knew then his job there was done.

“Soon afterwards I spotted an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph for a senior management position. The unnamed company was looking for a ‘generalist’. The employer turned out to be Securicor Security. They were widening the net of who they employed, and wanted to find out if there were people in the business world without benefit of a security, police service or Armed Forces background who could nonetheless do the job.” Fenton-Jones is living proof that such individuals do exist. Perhaps clients and contractors should be employing more of his ilk?

What we have at the moment is exactly what John Saunders said we wouldn’t see. In other words, the existing industry with licensing just slapped on top

Richard fenton-Jones, managing director, OCS resolution security

Fenton-Jones spent a couple of years with Securicor as regional director, initially looking after major accounts and then latterly serving as regional director for London and the South East. He eventually became managing director of OCS Security in February 2002 following the departure of Bill Philps.

“The business enjoyed a turnover of around £42 million,” states Fenton-Jones. “This year, we should be able to post a figure in excess of £85 million,” he comments with obvious pride.

Part of that sum is thanks to the Resolution acquisition, and part to the buy-out of Dartford-based Access Communication Services (a CCTV and access control arm that brings in £10 million of business and, at the same time, allows OCS Resolution Security to provide a well-rounded security offering to its impressive list of blue chip clients).

Clients and the buying process

One of the major issues for Prichard and Fenton-Jones is how clients are buying security services these days. “What we are trying to do as a company is identify risk at our first sales call,” outlines Fenton-Jones. “We don’t just go in and ask what the client wants to buy, and how many hours of guarding they need. We sit down with the end user and ask them why they buy security in the first place. What risks are they trying to ameliorate? The contractor should identify the business’ risks, and then try and wrap a bespoke solution around it. We require our sales force to think like risk managers.” It’s a sound philosophy.

OCS Resolution Security is a supportive partner and sponsor – as indeed are CMP Information and Security Management Today (SMT) – of the current Security Research Initiative being undertaken by Professor Martin Gill and the team at Perpetuity Research and Consultancy International. “One of the early findings that’s starting to emerge from Martin’s questioning of procurement specialists who aren’t security experts,” adds Fenton-Jones, “is that when they look at the ‘Beauty Parade’ of contractors, they don’t see any significant differences in their service offering. They have little else to go on, they claim, except for price. They will pay more, they say, if the industry can give them added value that meets their corporate needs.”

Fenton-Jones is adamant there are now four types of client. First, there’s the smaller, local client who, anecdotally, buys due to insurer diktat. “The kind of company that buys security for ‘presence’. The person doing the buying will be a generalist. They may not even be a facilities manager,” explains Fenton-Jones. “They could be a general building manager. This is the market that will not go away, despite what the SIA might believe. It will exist for many years to come. I’m certain of that.”

The second type of client is at the other end of the spectrum. It’s the global procurement specialist. “There are few contractors who can tackle that market,” suggests Fenton-Jones. “Securitas Security Services and Group 4 Securicor would be among them.”

He “struggles to understand the value” of global purchasing. “Even within UK regions there are different forms of management and several opposing perceptions of how security operations should be run, so how can a ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ scenario be possible?”

Then there’s the “amorphous mix of clients in the middle”. This would include the dedicated in-house security manager with an influence on – and an ability to – purchase security services. There’s also the facilities manager selected by the corporate to procure security on its behalf. “The facilities management companies are also looking to self-deliver these days. Some of them are acquiring security businesses to do just that.”

Middle management is the key

Both practitioners believe that a prominent guarding industry weakness lies in the quality of its middle management (ie operational and regional managers). Fenton-Jones feels that the guarding sector has something to answer for here, because the industry hasn’t been brave enough to tackle clients on this issue.

When he introduces a new operations or regional manager to a customer, that customer will invariably ask about their background and what they know about security. “If our employee says they’ve just joined, the fear is that we will lose credibility in the client’s mind,” he explains. “I wouldn’t want our business to be solely made up by people with no experience. You need a mix.”

Before we close our stimulating discussion, attentions inevitably turn once again towards regulation. Dai Prichard swiftly focuses his mind on the question of in-house licensing.

“I have a personal view on this,” he states, before pausing for a moment’s thought. “Any decent in-house operation that allows itself to work below the minimum standard exhibited by the ‘worst’ of the 240 companies now listed on the ACS Register is fooling itself. It will attract ‘the great unwashed’ in terms of unlicensed officers and, when something goes horribly awry, the security manager will lose their job. In truth, in-house licensing should really be a self-fulfilling prophecy.” n