More From Retail Fraud ‘On The Road’ Conference

Last week our Director, Martin Gill, chaired the Retail Fraud ‘On The Road’ Conference in Leicester. He reported back on a wide array of very good speakers reflecting on such diverse topics as learning from the Olympics to issues involved in centralising a Loss Prevention team.

Martin also gave a breakfast briefing in which he reported on some of the issues that the police have encountered in working with private security. These included:

• Lack of leadership (on both sides).
• Lack of accountability/regulation.
• Opposing principles (private security are motivated by profit rather than public service).
• Threat to reputation (not least when things go wrong and the police have to pick up the pieces).
• Nature of front-line policing not conducive to private security.
• Resistance to reducing police numbers.
• Shortage of the necessary business skills (Police are trained to deal with major crises but not to evaluate business plans).
• The ability of the private security industry to deliver (the G4S Olympic failures illustrate the point).
• Absence of evidence that it provides value for money (at least the evidence is contradictory).