Links Sitemap Business Linker Sitemap

Security, a private and a public business

As the Euro 2016 has drawn to a close, one could not underestimate the contribution of the security forces - public and private - to the success of the competition. After an almost trouble-free month of football in a country that has seen it all in terms of terrorism, street battles between legions of fans, youth going on rampage, and violent ethnic conflicts dragging for weeks, it is now time we turned our eyes towards those who made it possible for evryone to enjoy the spectacle of Irish fans singing in the streets, Welsh fans chanting 'please don't take me home', and Iceland supporters' almost shy behavior before making stadiums reverberate with their thunder-clapö or to be able to go to Bucharest's National Arena with your kids and safely enjoy a Steaua - Dinamo game, for that matter.
As I was talking to Mr. Gabriel Badea, the Chairman of the Federation for Security Services in Romania, it became clear that the private security business had come a long way over the past 10 years, from a rather unclear past and shabby reputation to a highly regulated industry that employs more than 100,000 people. In a sense, Badea himself is a reflection of that change: an MD of a private security company, he holds a degree in Law, a Master of Science degree in Risk & Security Management from the University of Leicester – one of the top 15 universities in the UK – and an MBA in Business studies, awarded by the Open University in UK. Juggling with three foreign languages, Mr. Badea feels at ease debating with any of his fellows at the European confederation (CoESS) of the private security sector in Brussels.
“We are working hard these days on changing our business environment for the better and improving the private security’s public image in the process, to ameliorate working conditions for the many people employed in the private security sector,” says Badea. “Private security is indeed a critically important industry and it needs to be recognized as such. One should take into account that most of the national strategic infrastructure is protected by private security officers and we are a massive contributor to the public safety. Statistical data shows that in 2015 more than 15,000 offenders were apprehended by private security officers and handed over to police, and thus fewer criminals roam the streets and stolen goods worth millions have been returned to their rightful owners.
“Furthermore, the ‘free riding’ effect expands security beyond those who pay for it to those living or working in the proximity of secured premises, thus private security is creating more and more ‘safe zones’ within our cities, consequently reducing the burden on the police’s shoulders. There is no liberty and prosperity without security”,  Mr. Gabriel Badea concludes somewhat philosophically.
But the truth of the matter is that private security is a highly competitive business, with a cost-driven distorted competition, where rogue firms that totally disregard investment in training and supervision - which are essential features for proper quality security services - have transformed competition into a “race to the bottom” with dire consequences. There is no surprise that such companies bend the rules of fair competition and blatantly disregard any tax and labor legislation. Lately, the authorities have taken action against some of the culprits, but still the private security industry’s competition environment is far from being free and fair.
Amid this, Badea sees that the Federation’s major challenge, as defender of the interests of law-abiding quality service providers, is to raise the issue with the authorities and the public alike, and to make everyone aware that “cheap private security services entail compromises on quality, legality or both.” In most cases, companies providing security services at unsustainable prices were later accused of tax evasion, money laundering and of seriously breaching the labor legislation.
“Unfortunately, the Romanian transposition of EU Directive on Public Acquisition is rather inconsistent and it sometimes goes against the very spirit of the said directive that encourages EU member states to use the ‘best value (for money)’ rather than the ‘lowest price’ as their main criterion in awarding public contracts. Our countless interventions during the public debate phase, trying to convince the government to set the best value as the main awarding criterion in awarding public contracts for labor intensive sectors such private security were largely ignored,” complains Mr. Gabriel Badea.
In Italy, private security public contracts are awarded solely on the best value criterion, and the situation is similar in other EU countries such as Belgium, Sweden, Germany and Finland, where private security is valued and regarded as an essential part of the social and economic environment.
What the Federation is facing is not an easy task. As the price is still the main criterion in awarding security contracts, the technical and quality merits of security services are widely disregarded by both private and public customers in selecting their security services provider, which leads to a lose-lose situation: for companies, workers, customers and for state’s coffers alike.
The current security regulations are rather outdated (they were adopted back in 2003) and highly detailed, prescriptive and require a massive amount of resources in order to be properly enforced. Furthermore, the regulatory authority, i.e. the police, is ill-equipped to rise to the challenge and thus the enforcement of the law is inconsistent and selective. The same goes for the labor legislation.
“We are determined to actively campaign for raising the public and customer awareness on how important it is not to select security suppliers based on the lowest price tender, but on “the best value” principles, i.e. the best quality services for the money spent. Customers must be aware that compromising on the quality of security services entails compromising on their own security and, consequently, by employing cheap, low-quality security services they are actually far for being protected. On the contrary, they are exposing their goods, possessions or businesses to more risks. “Not to mention that in the case of critical strategic infrastructures, ineffective, but cheap security services may easily become the root cause of big scale disasters,” warns Mr. Gabriel Badea.
The Federation encourages its members to abide by the profession’s ethical principles and to raise the standards of their services, to invest in the latest security hardware and technology, to invest in training, to introduce and follow “best practice” principles that have been adopted throughout the European Union.
Recently, Romania became the sixth country in the world to take part in the OSPA Award, alongside the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Norway, Germany and Poland. OSPA stands for “Outstanding Security Performance Award”, an international program that rewards professional achievements of companies and individuals across the security sector. The award criteria are based on extensive research carried out by Perpetuity Research Center in the UK on key factors that contribute to outstanding performance in security industry.
“I’m confident that OSPA will provide huge motivation for better professional performance in Romania, and we are looking forward for the first Romania OSPA Gala Night in November 2016,” concludes Gabriel Badea, chairman of the Federation for Security Services in Romania.

The editorial is also available in our print edition.

S-ar putea să îți placă:


COMENTARII:
Fii tu primul care comenteaza