Security and intelligence
Keep your facilities and assets protected – and your people safe – with our end-to-end security services. Our fully-vetted, highly-trained security professionals and front-of-house colleagues support organisations across industries. Delivery is backed by purpose-built technologies and leading insight into risks and threats.
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Mitie is the UK’s biggest security provider
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Our broad portfolio
Protect your people, assets, buildings and more with our security and intelligence services. These businesses help you understand your risk profile, respond to evolving threats and secure your facilities and wider organisation.
GBE Converge Group
Mitie announced the acquisition of GBE Converge Group, an independent provider of fire, security and information and communications technology solutions, strengthening Mitie’s position in the intelligence and technology-driven fire and security markets.
Find out moreLinx International Group
Mitie announced the acquisition of Linx International Group, including Linx Consulting, PerpetuityARC Training and Tavcom, collectively providers of risk management, training and consulting services for the security industry, strengthening Mitie’s intelligence-led security and risk management portfolio.
Find out moreRHI Industrials
Mitie announced the acquisition of R H Irving Industrials, 提供广泛的复杂保安澳博官方网站,包括电子及实体保安系统的专业保安公司, cyber protection, 土木工程和接地澳博官方网站,特别关注高度监管的部门,包括关键的国家基础设施和公用事业.
Find out moreEsoteric
Mitie announced it had acquired Esoteric Ltd, a specialist provider of counter espionage and surveillance countermeasure services. Building on Mitie’s existing risk analysis and intelligence capabilities, the acquisition will strengthen its position as the largest provider of security services to business.
Find out moreBe inspired
- Insight
- 3 June 2024
- Podcasts
- 25 March 2024
- News
- 8 September 2023
How we can help
Understand the risk landscape with our intelligence services
Everything we do is supported by up-to-the-minute insight into the security landscape, provided by our central intelligence hub and over 200 UK specialists.
As well as informing our other security services, our intelligence arm operates independently. This allows us to stress test and assess your strategy to ensure you’ve got the right measures in place.
Enlist our security personnel to protect what matters most
From door supervisory and CCTV operation to close protection and counterterrorism, our security guards are equipped with industry-leading skills and technologies to ensure the safety of your people, assets and facilities.
We can support you with mobile security patrols, dedicated on-site personnel, remote monitoring and more. Together, we’ll assess the level of risk and deploy the right mix of people and services to meet your needs.
Support your strategy with our fire and security systems
Put our state-of-the-art technologies to work to protect your facilities from fire, theft, vandalism and more. Our systems are ready to give you insight and peace of mind, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You get full visibility of your estate, potential risks and individual incidents – and the tools to intervene when needed.
Whether you’re looking for end-to-end security and fire prevention or a single service to complete your strategy, we can help define your needs, create a plan and establish new systems across your facilities.
Hire the right candidates with stringent vetting processes
You can rely on our in-depth vetting services to give you full confidence in every hire, with rapid, detailed feedback about your candidates.
We use the latest vetting techniques to cover the full spectrum of vetting requirements for all types of roles, from healthcare workers to C-level executives, in line with the standards for your industry.
Welcome colleagues and visitors with a highly-trained front of house team
Our Signature colleagues provide world-class front-of-house experiences based on your organisation’s needs.
Each team member is Security Industry Authority licensed on top of their role-specific training. So, not only are they excellent ambassadors, but they’re also well-prepared to handle any disruptive incidents at your site.
The Science of protecting people, property and assets
The world of security is evolving. The increasing severity, frequency and sophistication of threats need solutions advanced enough to cope with these new challenges.
Chris and Ian dive into the innovative world of protective security – and explore what it means for today’s biggest organisations. They get a glimpse behind the scenes of security at two of London’s most iconic spaces, learning the secrets of how The Shard and Eurostar’s St Pancras hub are kept safe. There’s a fine balance between robust measures and maintaining a seamless customer experience.
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Jason TowseManaging Director, Mitie Business Services
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Emma ShawManaging Director of Mitie Intelligence Services
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Matt RogersHead of UK Security, Eurostar International
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Andrew DonaldsonHead of Security, Real Estate Management (UK)
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Professor Alison WakefieldCo-Director Cybersecurity and Criminology Centre, University of West London
The world of security is evolving. The increasing severity, frequency and sophistication of threats need solutions advanced enough to cope with these new challenges.
Chris and Ian dive into the innovative world of protective security – and explore what it means for today’s biggest organisations. They get a glimpse behind the scenes of security at two of London’s most iconic spaces, learning the secrets of how The Shard and Eurostar’s St Pancras hub are kept safe. There’s a fine balance between robust measures and maintaining a seamless customer experience.
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Jason TowseManaging Director, Mitie Business Services
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Emma ShawManaging Director of Mitie Intelligence Services
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Matt RogersHead of UK Security, Eurostar International
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Andrew DonaldsonHead of Security, Real Estate Management (UK)
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Professor Alison WakefieldCo-Director Cybersecurity and Criminology Centre, University of West London
“Security is often viewed as an end state. Security is about guards, it’s about locks, it’s about CCTV cameras. When its true form, ‘protective security’, is about the mitigation of risks stemming from those people who could wish us harm’.”
Andrew Donaldson, Head of Security Real Estate Management (UK) Ltd
Episode links
Mitie Security. Intelligence. Technology. People (video)
Case study: Bank of England – protecting the world’s 8th largest bank
Security & Fire Services | Facilities Management Provider | Mitie
Episode 3: The science of protecting people, property and assets
Speakers:
- Chris Moriarty
- Ian Ellison
- Professor Alison Wakefield
- Andy Donaldson
- Emma Shaw
- Jason Towse
- Matt Rogers
Ian Ellison: How secure do you feel right now? Just pause for a moment and reflect. Because many people, if they are lucky enough, take their own personal security for granted. Going about their day, popping into the office, picking up something from the shops, catching the train home; never really stopping to think about how safe they are at any given moment.
Meanwhile, an army of professionals carefully monitor, 使用一系列先进的工具和技术来评估和管理我们的安全,这样我们就可以无忧无虑地开展业务,不知道任何潜在的威胁. But the truth is that many of those threats have, over time, become more sophisticated, more resilient and more determined in recent years.
Geopolitical tensions, 政治动荡和社会激进主义只是可以将平凡的一天变成全国甚至国际新闻事件的三个宏观因素. And they seem to be occupying our screens more frequently than ever. And this isn’t just about physical security. In the UK alone, it is estimated that over half a million cyberattacks are detected daily.
Whether it’s mischievous hackers, professional scammers, or nation states looking to disrupt operations, the security industry is faced with an increasingly complex landscape of threats that it needs to protect us from. But with the help of technology, they remain vigilant.
Connected devices, big data and artificial intelligence, all combined with decades of experience, are transforming the security sector into one that not only is able to respond to incidents when they occur, but can also predict and neutralise threats before they’ve had a chance to cause their intended harm.
This is the story of that technology-enabled workforce. This is The Science of Service.
Chris Moriarty: Hello and welcome to episode three of The Science of Service Podcast brought to you by Mitie. I’m Chris Moriarty…
Ian Ellison: And I’m Ian Ellison.
Chris Moriarty: So quick recap. We’ve been sent on a voyage of discovery by Mitie CEO, Phil Bentley, who challenged us to go and find out more about how organisations, Mitie clients, are using the very latest technology to transform their facilities.
Now, we’ve already looked at climate change, so go back and have a listen to that if you’ve missed it. But in today’s episode, we’re slipping into the shadows as we explore security.
Ian Ellison: So, 我认为公平地说,安全的世界是从购物中心的保安追赶厚脸皮的商店扒手演变而来的, visible security at reception desks and CCTV cameras on the corners of buildings.
The severity, frequency, 我们今天面临的威胁的复杂性意味着组织必须比以往任何时候都更加敏锐和积极主动地保护自己, their customers and their employees. And today they lean on a huge armoury of digital tools to help.
Chris Moriarty: And that’s before you even start thinking about cyber threats. So corporate security is huge. So huge in fact, that some have valued the UK security industry at around £10.5 billion with over 1,500家安全公司为组织提供专业知识,而Mitie是该行业的关键组成部分,他们的澳博官方网站必须随着这个不断发展的行业而发展.
So of course, security personnel are a fundamental part of what they do, but added to that are the intelligence and risk services they offer, 实时远程澳博官方网站监控全球事件,然后将所有这些与地面团队和蓝光澳博官方网站联系起来. It’s a complex system of data and expertise.
Ian Ellison: Certainly sounds like it.
Chris Moriarty: And today we get to speak to two of Mitie’s clients about how they approach this. 我们将走进伦敦最具标志性的两个空间的幕后,了解那些经常被忽视的秘密工作,以帮助保护每个人,并确保他们能够安全地完成他们需要做的事情. So, Ian, are you ready?
Ian Ellison: Indeed I am. But first, Chris, in keeping with our other episodes, let’s just set the scene with a bit of gravitas. Let’s start with Professor Alison Wakefield, who is Professor of Criminology and Security Studies at the University of West London. Now, Alison comes with some fairly hefty chops in the world of security.
Alison Wakefield: I’ve been academic advisor to the Chartered Security Professionals Registration Authority for over a decade, and I’m on the advisory board of Resilience First, the London Cyber Resilience.
Ian Ellison: And to get started, I asked Alison to set the scene for us. Now, listen out for this notion of protective security, because it’s going to become really important.
Alison Wakefield: Now, ideally, security isn’t just an organisational cost. You can see how it, it might well be. And, in the age of cyber security threats, you know, that that’s become a fast developing multi-billion dollar global industry. But security should also be about helping organisations grow and develop in accordance with their mission, vision, and objectives, and factoring in the security considerations as early as possible. 所以它在早期阶段就涵盖了这些方面而不是在投资之后再识别它们.
I actually really like the terminology of protective security that’s used by the UK Government security profession, and also counterparts in the Australian and New Zealand governments. They break the area down into physical, personal information and technical security. 因此,我喜欢这种清晰和精确的做法,尽管该行业在向外界传达其范围方面并不总是那么有效.
Chris Moriarty: I think that’s the thing, isn’t it? If you ask most people in the street about security, they’ll probably come up with more obvious visual examples that we’ve already touched on, like shoplifting and CCTV. But the reality is it’s much, much more than that.
Andy Donaldson: Because security means different things to different people. And, you know, security is often viewed as an end state. You know, security is about guards. It’s about locks. It’s about CCTV cameras. When it’s [in its] true form, protective security is about the mitigation of risks stemming from those people that could wish us harm. My name’s Andy Donaldson. I’m Head of Security for a company called Real Estate Management, UK Limited.
Chris Moriarty: So Andy here is talking about the mitigation of risk, which I think is a really interesting pivot from, I guess, more reactive security, which would have to respond to a crime or something like that. So almost a scientific approach of assessing risk, mitigating or reducing it, and then managing it, constantly making assessments and planning accordingly.
Andy Donaldson: And that harm could be in the form of, you know, conventional, traditional criminals or terrorists or hostile state actors, or a range of things. And protective security is about the identification of those threats. And with threats, what you’ve got to understand is it’s one word, but it’s made up of two key components, 这是某人做某事的意图以及他们是否有实际能力去做他们想做的事.
And once you’ve understood those components of threat, you’re then talking about how vulnerable you actually are to that threat, and that vulnerability management process is actually risk. Once you’ve identified your risk and you have assessed it, you’ve then got to look at the vulnerability and what can you do to reduce, uh, the chances of you getting caught up in something bad?
And that is what protective security is about. It’s about the application of measures to reduce, reduce your vulnerability.
Ian Ellison: Now in one way, that feels like a simple proposition. Identify risks, remove them, stay safe. But the complexity of those risks, and their constant evolution, means that this requires a ton of expertise and constant updating. Just think about the world of cyber security, something that Alison highlights.
Alison Wakefield: Corporate espionage, which are increasingly common at a time of considerable and growing cyber security risk, as well as geopolitical tension. 它改变了风险评估的平衡,因为网络安全威胁在企业风险登记册中占有非常高的地位,因此网络方面的快速发展, which is almost, well, I guess it has dwarfed physical security now.
So those of us that came into the sector with more of a physical security orientation are being dragged into those areas.
克里斯·莫里亚蒂:这真的很令人兴奋,但是想象一下,如果你不得不为英国最复杂的建筑之一考虑这个问题. Remember when Andy introduced himself, he said he worked for Real Estate Management UK Limited, REM. What he didn’t mention is what buildings they’re looking after. So, Andy…
Andy Donaldson: So we have a multi-billion pound portfolio that includes some of the most iconic buildings in London. Included in that is The Shard.
Ian Ellison: Wow.
Chris Moriarty: Right. So most people will know what we’re talking about when we say The Shard, but just in case you weren’t aware. The Shard, 95 stories high, the tallest building in Western Europe, but what goes on inside might not be so familiar to everyone.
Andy Donaldson: It’s first important to kind of recognise or at least not have a go at defining of what The Shard is, because it’s an important part of REM’s portfolio. It’s not the only part, but it is significant because we want to be a beacon for modern London. That’s what we provide. And it is internationally recognised as part of the London skyline.
So it is a significant, significant building. And when you talk about The Shard or I talk about the Shard, it’s a complex environment. It has all the component parts of a city. You know, we can take the, the viewing platform, a tourist location, we can take the swimming pool, we can take the hotel, we can take the hospital, we can take the 32 businesses that are in there, the bars, the restaurants. There’s so much, and it’s all the component parts of a city, but instead of being layout on the ground, we go up in the sky. We’re co-located with London Bridge underground station and London Bridge railway station as well, so two key transport hubs that are responsible for moving millions of people around as well.
So there’s so much with, you know, the words of The Shard. What do we actually mean by The Shard? It is another city within London. So, we want people to live, visit, work there safely and with confidence.
Ian Ellison: Now, we’ve been to The Shard a few times, Chris, particularly on the back of this project, because Mitie are one of those 32 businesses that Andy mentioned there. And whilst I know that there’s airport-style security at the entrance to the building, as a visitor I’m never really aware of much more than that. 然而,听起来安迪有很多事情要做,他需要保护不同空间的多样性和重要性.
Chris Moriarty: Not only do Mitie occupy one of those floors, they also work with REM on providing not just boots on the ground, 还有我们之前提到的所有情报机构,帮助安迪和他的团队保证那座复杂建筑的安全. And do you know what, Ian? I’ve got a little treat in store for you. I got my clearance and I’m off to visit The Shard to go behind the scenes of their security operation. Now, a quick note to listeners. As you can imagine, this is sensitive stuff, so you might find us talking about something that we haven’t fully described. Well, that’s deliberate. Remember, we said Andy has to assess and reduce risks. Well, that also includes gobby podcast hosts coming in and describing secret rooms and tools. Anyway, off to The Shard.
Andy Donaldson: Welcome to the Shard. We’re currently in one of the access points into the building that a lot of people use. As you can see here, it’s particularly a busy day round about lunchtime. We’ve got people coming in and heading out. For those people who visit us here coming in, you’ll go through airport-style security. Security at the airport are looking for certain things. We’re looking for certain things here. So there’s certain items, certain weapons, certain things that we don’t want coming into the building to help keep people safe. And that’s why people go through the metal detector that you can see and any belongings are put through the x-ray machine there.
You can see the human security guards that we’ve got here, supported by some great technology. So if you start looking around, you can see this great open plan space with numerous CCTV cameras deployed. Those CCTV cameras aren’t monitored here, they’re monitored in the security control room. So, we can take a walk there when you’re ready.
So what we’ll do now is break away from the open access. And we’re going to pass through a number of security points that will get us to our security control room here at The Shard. So if you just hold on here for a second.
Chris Moriarty: Yeah…
Andy Donaldson: So I don’t want to go into the sort of finer details of where the control room is actually situated, but you can see that we’re taking up a room there at the moment. This is one of the most important parts of the building, protected by a number of levels of physical security.
Chris Moriarty: Yeah.
Andy Donaldson: Can you just take a seat in here? I’ll be back in a second.
Chris Moriarty: Yeah, no problem. So I’ve just been left in what looks like a boardroom, but I have a feeling it’s going to turn into an episode of CSI or something.
Andy Donaldson: So we are now in what is called the incidents room here at The Shard. So in the event of a critical incident, a serious incident, this is where our command team would relocate to. And at this point, I’d just like to get your first…
Chris Moriarty: Wow. Another quick listener note here. At this point, the room didn’t have any windows, just a couple of screens. But with a click of a button, Andy revealed the security room. Wow.
Andy Donaldson: I guess just to kind of explain, we’re in one particular room and that room is separate by screen that we have some control over. So whilst you’re not in the control room at the moment, you’ve got a view into it.
Chris Moriarty: I’m in a Hollywood set now – like some sort of Bond movie. I mean, so we’re looking at two dozen different screens. I guess they rotate and can be reconfigured to whatever you need to look at. There’s a team in there with lots of monitors. There seems to be like, there’s lots of lights and data. So this is, I mean, there’s very little that can go on in this building that you can’t be monitoring, right?
Andy Donaldson: That’s it. And we have this divide in there as well. And that’s for a command team not to get in the way of an operational response. So I’m one of the few senior leaders within the organisation that can actually access the control room when I need to. Everybody else involved in our gold, silver, 青铜结构——这是我们应对突发事件的框架——它们留在这里,这样就不会妨碍, of the guys and girls who work in there getting their job done. And that’s dealing with whatever incident it is.
Everything’s duplicated in here so we can have that live feed put specifically into this room for the command team. In the main room you can see that the team’s working. They work 24/7, and they’re specifically selected and trained for the job of staffing the control room. What you’re looking at is ‘Mission Control’ for The Shard.
Chris Moriarty: Right.
Andy Donaldson: So we have our duty manager in front of us at the moment, and they fulfil the bronze commander role. So over a 12-hour period, they are the first port of call for any incident that happens. And we have an exceptional, exceptional team working here at The Shard. You can see how we integrate into some of the shared building management systems with, um, with the retail arcade, which leads into London Bridge Railway Station.
Chris Moriarty: Where I had my lunch.
Andy Donaldson: Also Transport for London with the London Underground. We have hundreds of CCTV cameras here. We base our external cameras upon a plan. So, we bring in specialists from the Police and Government. They say to us, ‘If we were going to spy on The Shard, this is where we’d spy on it from.’ And that forms the basis for our external CCTV coverage, how we build that into our external patrols with the security personnel that you see walking outside around the building, and our relationship with our neighbours. So, you know, if somebody is acting suspiciously, or acting in a way that you’re not comfortable with, certainly directed towards The Shard, then please let us know. And that is just amplifying existing messaging from Action Counters Terrorism and counterterrorism policing. But there is some science behind why we have the cameras set where they are. So there’s certain cameras that are set to alarm if somebody walks in front of them.
Chris Moriarty: I see that. So just detecting motion flags – oh that doesn’t look right.
Andy Donaldson: Exactly, you know it’s somebody in an area that they could potentially not meant to be in, or only a limited number of people are allowed into. So we have a number of security guards who are here 24/7 and some dedicated to internal patrols. So, our guards can, within minutes, get to any aspect of the building. They know the place inside and out. To spend time with them twice a year, I’ll spend a full 12-hour shift with the duty manager and they walk my feet off.
And the internal patrol officers, they know every shortcut and the quickest route from point A to B, as possible within the building.
Chris Moriarty: Andy gave me a much wider tour and actually made me walk up loads of stairs, kept getting me to look down stairwells to see how high we were, and showed me the viewing platform. But the real star of that visit was the control room. I was just totally struck about the complexity of it all. It genuinely, genuinely felt like I was in the middle of a Hollywood thriller, looking at all those cameras and data points. There is so much information coming through, some of it from Mitie’s Intelligence Security Operations Centre, the ISOC, alongside real-time information in the building. And it’s constant, never stops, 24 hours a day.
Ian Ellison: Agreed. And I actually caught up with one of Mitie’s security experts to understand just how complex things have really got.
Emma Shaw: So my name is Emma Shaw. I’m the Managing Director for Intelligence Services for the Mitie Intelligence Services team. I started my career in the Army. Eighteen years old I joined the Military Police, which I did for a number of years. And then I moved on there to UK Government, and that’s really where I learnt my craft around intelligence, risk, and covert work investigations.
Ian Ellison: So obviously Emma can’t tell us much more than that about her past roles, but she did help me understand how the changing world around us, the stuff we see in the news, is driving security operations to adapt. It’s why Andrew and his team are constantly innovating and pulling intelligence from a whole host of different feeds.
Emma Shaw: The whole face of the security industry has had to change because of that macro environment, because of world events. You know, whether it is counter terrorism, whether it’s espionage, there’s a whole raft of different activities, criminality. You know, growth in terms of online data, and the security around protecting data, and not just in the physical form, but as I say, within the cyber data form as well.
So, significantly everything has changed over that. When I think back about my early part of my career, you know, in the Army, you know, we were dealing with terrorism. And so, obviously whilst that has changed shape and changed a lot over the years, you know, it forms part of terrorism, there are different countries, different organisations, different levels of extremism. And that changes and adapts.
克里斯·莫里亚蒂:我开始听到的是澳博官方网站科学播客的潜在主题:在这个世界里,我们提出了像安德鲁这样的专家, like Emma, who have real world experience, and in this case, quite extreme experience. And we bring that experience into corporate environments, particularly high-risk locations. But all of the work is underpinned by technology. So, Andrew mentioned all the cameras and the motion detectors, but then went on to explain to me how his duty managers have an intimate knowledge of the location, the quickest routes to certain points of the building. So it’s science and service together again.
Ian Ellison: So it’s convergence then?
Jason Towse: Convergence is really where you start to bring the security that people deliver together with, um, where you then start to leverage technology and the evolving or developing technology, whether it be CCTV, whether it be data analytics. You can then start to think about bringing cyber security into the discussion as well, but really starting to deliver very different outcomes for customers.
My name is Jason Towse and I’m a member of the group executive at Mitie, responsible for Business Services.
Ian Ellison: Now, Jason is part of Mitie’s leadership team, responsible for all the business services, which include a number of things, but I think it’s safe to say that security is his core competence. 他是多个委员会和咨询委员会的成员,甚至在2020年的杰出安全绩效奖上获得了终身成就奖.
But that said, unlike a lot of people in the sector, he hasn’t come from a Police or military background. So, what we get from Jason is a balance between security expertise and commercial awareness.
Jason Towse: For us, 这真的是为了给我们的客户带来价值,确保我们得到正确的答案,帮助他们为他们的业务制定安全战略和框架. And we don’t always answer a customer’s question how they want us to answer. Sometimes we’ll challenge their thinking, which means we will develop a very, very different response to what risks we think the customers are facing.
Chris Moriarty: Now, of course, this is about keeping people safe, but it can’t come at the expense of experience, right? Like with Andy and The Shard, we need to make sure the environment is safe. But go too far and you start having a negative impact on people’s experience of The Shard.
Ian Ellison: Absolutely. So it’s a question of balance. I think you probably saw that when you visited The Shard. I’ve certainly experienced it when entering the building. It’s clearly secure, but it’s not cumbersome or overwhelming. And that’s in a building that houses around 9,000 people on a daily basis.
但想象一下,如果你负责一个需要达到机场安全水平的空间,每年有3300万人通过它. And all of your security processes had to fit within the length of a swimming pool.
Matt Rogers: My name’s Matt Rogers and I’m the Head of UK Security for Eurostar International. I’ve been at Eurostar now for 10 plus years.
Ian Ellison: Now, Matt here gives us another key thing to think about.
Matt Rogers: You’re protecting property, people and assets, as well as reputation. Reputation is massively important, I think, as well. And that’s something that we don’t always consider.
Chris Moriarty: That’s interesting, because I guess a major incident at a train station could have a negative impact for months, years even, when people are deciding how to travel.
Ian Ellison: Right, just take the 9/11 attacks. It took years for the aviation industry to slowly recover to pre-9/11 levels of business.
Chris Moriarty: But also, while safety is paramount for Matt, I guess he still has to make sure that people’s experience is as smooth as possible. No one wants to start a trip with a painful trudge through security. We want to get through as quick as possible.
Ian Ellison: Exactly. And as I hinted when I introduced him, Matt talks about the Eurostar process in comparison to airport security.
Matt Rogers: If we use aviation as an example, you go through check-in. You put your bags in, you check this in, you do this, you do that. And you’ve probably got about half a mile worth of distance that you’ve covered. Our area is you go through check-in, you go through your x-ray security checks, you go through your exit check, and then you go through Police Affrontier – all in the length of a swimming pool.
So, in order to facilitate that, we have to be very smart in what we do. We’re on about shaving seconds. Moving 20,在保持您的合规性、标准和客户交付的同时,在专门的区域有000名员工是非常具有挑战性的. Departures hall holds 2,500 people. Our trains hold 900 people. Three trains on the trot, all within the space of a certain time frame. And five services within an hour and 10 of each other, we’re already at capacity. So that’s why we are very different to that aviation sector, because we don’t have the luxury of space and retail outlets and all the others. We are literally getting them in, out, up on the platform, get on the train and move on your way.
I think we move 27 to 32 passengers per minute through our environment. So, getting that right is really difficult, as well as getting the customer service delivery.
Ian Ellison: Okay, so turning again to Jason, he’s actually worked closely with Eurostar for a number of years.
Jason Towse: Probably 15 to 16 years now, and I’ve seen Eurostar move from Waterloo Station across to St Pancras. And actually there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes at Eurostar. We’re working now to really help develop some of that x-ray baggage screening environment, to deploy our unique Merlin 24/7 Protect system, 这样,我们就可以记录在任何工作天内发现的事件、信息和数据——任何工作天内的任何行动发现. 这有助于我们做出一些不同的决定,以及关于如何改变我们在欧洲之星的安全态势的明智决定.
And when you’re in Eurostar, you’re then crossing international soil, you’re crossing into French soil as soon as you walk through the barriers at Eurostar. So we’re having to understand the, the idiosyncratic ways of how other countries can operate. We are also providing the significant levels of we call operational intelligence, to Eurostar.
We provide that real-time intelligence through our Intelligence Security Operations Centre to Eurostar as well. So, it’s really is a multi-layered approach to providing security Eurostar, and many of those things would not be obvious to anybody just traveling through on their ticket, I guess.
Chris Moriarty: So, we’ve got another example of our recurring theme: technology paired with expertise. And again, we can hear how much of that sits behind the scenes, allowing people to go about their daily activities.
Ian Ellison: Yeah, and talking about behind the scenes, Chris, during my discussion with Matt, I got you an ‘All Access’ pass to Eurostar. So, I know you just got to explore the Shard, but you’ll have to grab your mic and head back into London, I’m afraid. You’re about to go behind the scenes at London St Pancras International.
Chris Moriarty: So, just arrived at St Pancras. Busy day in the office. Uh, just heading off now to meet Matt. Hi Matt, how you doing? So, are we able to, where are we able to go?
Matt Rogers: Through the, go through the search area if you’re, if you’re okay with that?
Chris Moriarty: Perfect, yeah, yeah.
Matt Rogers: We can see what the team do.
Chris Moriarty: Right, that’s us on the other side. So, this is step one, right?
Matt Rogers: Yeah, well we’ve gone through step one in theory, you’ve just gone through your pass check there. No one who comes into the area can come in unless they’re either hosted by someone who has an authorised pass, and then otherwise a passenger. But things that you’ll notice, we’ve just gone through archways using x-ray machine tech, dual screen technology. And then we’ve got explosive trace detection systems as well as a secondary source of indication.
We’re different again in terms of people bring their whole luggage through. So, we don’t separate.
Chris Moriarty: Of course. Yeah. Yeah. There’s nothing going to the hold, right?
Matt Rogers: Exactly. So, what you’ll notice is that the trays that we’re using on these, uh, are regular hold ones. So you’d see these in airports. However, obviously our bags that we’re using, or bags that passengers are bringing through, are decisively larger. So therefore, we, through our uniqueness again, had to have a separate tray return system built and designed.
Chris Moriarty: Yeah, yeah.
Matt Rogers: The different trays to be, uh, designed and put through that are robust enough. Passengers are able to lift their heavy bags up onto the conveyors.
Chris Moriarty: So with the, with the slight change in luggage, does that, does that slow things down? Because sort of thinking it through with aviation, you’re probably going to sling a holdall and your laptop down. But quite feasibly, people are going on a two-week trip to wherever, right?
Matt Rogers: You know, people are taking a lot of stuff away, you know. And, that’s, that’s really challenging.
Chris Moriarty: And we’ve got to get them through.
Matt Rogers: We’ve got to get them through. We know that, you know, the average passenger uses 2. 3 trays. Business passengers 1. 9 – that’s seasonally adjusted because people take their coats with them.
Chris Moriarty: Yeah.
Matt Rogers: All those things, so we know that that changes, that that’s a variant to us. We’ve got to get, get our conveyor belt continuously moving. You do not want to stop the conveyor from moving. That’s our objective, detecting our stuff, but keeping that conveyor. So, what we need to do is to encourage people to put trays back, because if they don’t, the conveyor comes to a stop, and then we’ve lost time. On our old x-ray machines, many moons ago, doing our, our, research on it, we identified that over the course of an hour, we stopped the conveyor for 15 minutes per hour.
So by having a tray rejection system, tray return system put in place, we then made an improvement of 25 percent, which is a massive improvement on throughput, from our perspective.
Chris Moriarty: Because of scale again, right? Because of the, like, the, I mean, how many hours are you open? Is it 24 hour, or is it just short of that?
Matt Rogers: You know, 4:30, 5 o’clock in the morning till 8 o’clock in the evening. We’ve still got arrivals coming in later than that, but our last departure is around about half past seven, eight o’clock.
Chris Moriarty: Right. So that’s a lot of 15 minutes when you stack it up per machine. So 25 percent savings, huge.
Matt Rogers: Yeah, absolutely. It all adds up. And that’s why we’re always looking to shave seconds along the line. It’s about shaving seconds.
Chris Moriarty: Does it make the boat go faster though?
Matt Rogers: Yeah, and it’s not always as easy as, oh, we’ll open up more machines. I’ve got 11 machines along here, one being the staff one. So, 10 machines for public use. For passenger use I can’t go and open up another bank of areas of 10 machines. We’ve just got to be smarter about how we do things.
Chris Moriarty: In amongst all of this amazing technology, we met a couple of the Mitie team and Matt shared some insights about the power of people working alongside this technology.
Matt Rogers: These are two of our top performers, to be quite honest, in terms of communicating to the customer, to have all this stuff ready and go to the right booths and the right elements, and they’ve been phenomenal. And you’ve only been here for how long now?
Mitie colleague: I’m here about one year.
Matt Rogers: Which is actually quite new. It is quite new. Our turnover here is lesser than any security site I’ve known. I think our turnover is around about 2 percent retention rate, which is phenomenally low. So, we’ve got a lot of people who are quite dedicated and loyal to Eurostar themselves. So they, they, they kind of stick with us. So to get new people is quite rare, but they’ve been top guys.
Chris Moriarty: Matt then took me to the VIP section which, again, was a real interesting blend of technology and people in creating a safe, secure, but smooth experience.
Matt Rogers: He’s bringing some premium product for us and um, we wanted, rather than having a dedicated team associated to it, we’ve brought in Chrissie to act as the host from the security element.
Chris Moriarty: Right.
Matt Rogers: And Chrissie’s done an amazing job over the last six years. Getting to know all the regular passengers, making sure the standard’s there, and people pay a premium for this ticket.
Chris Moriarty: So, this is where, so, in effect, a kind of a first class experience, right? I’ve either got lots of money, or I do this a lot, that I just wanted it to be smoother and all the rest of it. So, this is really where that, that balance of hospitality and security kind of flips, flips a bit more the other way into more hospitality.
Matt Rogers: Chrissie’s done a phenomenal job here, and, a very valuable member of the team. Yeah, and made the job your own, haven’t you really? Yeah. You’ve done great.
So the area we’ve got here at the moment is our Smart Check dedicated lane. This is where we’ve been trialling innovative facial recognition software that links with your ticket and the exit check systems.
Chris Moriarty: Right.
Matt Rogers: It’s an incredibly intuitive and very, very useful piece of kit. We’re still trying to promote it more and more. But we’ve had to, well, we dedicate the lane. Because, effectively, what it does is it takes out that section there. So, you’ll go through your check-in area. You pre-register, you do your facial.
Chris Moriarty: Yeah. Is that something you do at home? Like, when you’re buying your tickets?
Matt Rogers: Absolutely. You pre-register on that system. But you arrive, it immediately recognises your face. You come through the security checkers as ordinary, and then you’re literally fast tracking through to the police frontier, who’s our French border control operatives down there. Just takes out the exit check element from that one, which is the UK data collection exercise that we have to do on behalf of the Home Office.
Chris Moriarty: So, when you say the exit check system, is this where passports and stuff have become digital? So, there’s a kind of a digital record of my passport photo?
Matt Rogers: Yeah, so they implemented exit checks, which actually allows us to swipe and take the data, the data collection from every passenger travelling out of the country.
Chris Moriarty: So, with Eurostar, not only are we talking about security at an organisational level, but we can see here how the technology we’re dealing with can inform national security too. It’s extraordinary.
Ian Ellison: You know, what was really nice there was the team you met towards the end of the visit. You can tell there’s this blend between customer hospitality and security. But if you consider that alongside the explosion of technology, you start to see a really exciting sector to get into. And, remember Professor Alison Wakefield from the start of the show? Well, she thinks that this could also help make it a much more diverse sector as well.
Alison Wakefield: I think that combination of the interest in criminology and then the backgrounds that our students have, is really ideal for a sector that’s often talking about equity, diversity and inclusion, but still has challenges. You know, particularly in certain dimensions of security, in recruiting that breadth.
So, it’s a chance for me to help create new graduate opportunities, but also contribute with this, with a supply of graduates that they may not have thought of. So, I’ve worked with two of the major universities delivering security courses, and now at West London, have a partnership with Linx International, which is now part of Mitie, in the delivery of an MSc in International Security and Risk Management. 事实上,我们没有硕士学位,这意味着我们可以用Linx International的专业知识很快地创造一个硕士学位, Perpetuity Arc training brought. And that’s now been going since February, 2021, very successfully.
Chris Moriarty: That’s really exciting to see that level of qualification and increasing professionalism in the sector, which certainly wasn’t the case a few years ago. 另一个好处是,随着世界变得越来越相互联系和复杂,这是人们与他们的专业知识和支持它的技术之间联系的另一个例子.
And from what we’ve heard on this episode, this trajectory is only set to continue. So, the world of corporate protective security will need to keep evolving too.
Ian Ellison: For sure. And on that, I think we can give Mitie’s Jason Towse the last thought on this one.
Jason Towse: Delivering for me, it’s not just delivering what it says on the tin and delivering to SLA, it’s about adding value from day one. Starting to think about, OK, what’s next? And you can only do that through gathering data and delivering insights. And then when we talk about transforming, our customers don’t know everything about their business. Neither do we. But collaborating together to really start to identify what’s called the un-met need is how you can transform the future. Because, let’s face it, if we lived in a perfect world, you wouldn’t need half the security people that we deliver today.
So, the world continues to evolve and therefore demands transformation and, for me, that needs a more scientific approach than just answering the question. So, for me that’s Science of Service.
Chris Moriarty: Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Ian Ellison: Indeed.
Chris Moriarty: The Science of Service Podcast is produced by The Workplace Geeks. Our dialogue editor is David Crackles and we’d like to thank Professor Alison Wakefield, Andrew Donaldson and Matt Rogers for taking the time to speak to us. For more information about what we’ve discussed on this episode, please visit paulandoates.com.
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