Sharon Roberts, one of our Regional Investigation Managers, coordinated our involvement in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, which took place in Birmingham from 28 July to 08 August.
Here Sharon talks about the SIA’s work, which included almost two years of planning in support of the Organising Committee, West Midlands Police, and the security suppliers to deliver a safe and secure event.
The last few months have been busy, with our work starting long before the Games began. Investigators from my team, along with our Business Relationship Managers, have been supporting security suppliers on progressing licence applications and providing advice on screening and vetting. Colleagues from the wider Compliance & Inspections team contacted licence holders who were scheduled to work to check that they were still engaged and planning to turn up. You might remember the 2012 London Olympics, when headlines about security failing to attend and the last-minute call for military assistance were prominent. A lot of our work, and that of the Organising Committee, had been to avoid a similar situation.
I’ve lost count of how many times over the years I’ve said, “only trained and licensed security can ensure public protection” and this remains the mainstay of our work. To support this, we asked security suppliers to upload watchlists to ensure they only supplied licensed staff. We also provided advice on how to spot counterfeit licences.
The Commonwealth Games, as a publicly funded event, stipulated that all suppliers, including everyone in the labour supply chain, had to be an SIA approved contractor. Therefore we had to ensure conformance with the ACS (Approved Contractor Scheme) standard as well as compliance with the Private Security Industry Act. There were a couple of key aspects of the ACS standard that we really focused on: section 6, which is about how they look after their staff; and section 4, which is about conformance with HMRC requirements. In relation to the HMRC requirement, I had regular meetings with HMRC colleagues as to how we could protect HM revenue through PAYE conformance and due diligence in the labour chain.
An important element of our compliance work was our inspection programme.
The inspection element of the Games served several purposes:
. Ensuring that only SIA licensed security operatives engaged in licensable activities, thereby ensuring public safety and good standards of service delivery.
. Ensuring the wellbeing of security operatives by checking conformance with welfare aspects of the ACS.
. Conformance to the ACS requirement for operatives to be on PAYE.
. High visibility of the regulator undertaking regulatory compliance activities.
Our first major inspection took place when the Organising Committee ran test events at Alexander Stadium and the Aquatics Centre. Following on from that, we carried out inspections at Games sites as security numbers crept up, engaging with suppliers and the Committee to resolve some of the minor issues we found.
My team attended the rehearsal for the opening ceremony. The security deployment on that day was over 300 operatives. It was an extremely long, hot, rainy, and dirty day (there is no glamour in this job), but it was a joy to see such enthusiastic and friendly security operatives. There wasn’t one complaint. It was also good to see lots of women and so many young people who will hopefully see this as a start to a career in security.
We also became part of the Commonwealth Games family, cheering on the athletes while we checked licences and chatted to security personnel to make sure they were OK and being looked after.
Over the period of the Games we carried out 1,251 compliance checks across 17 separate Games sites.
The sites we visited included sports venues, athletes’ villages, and games hotels, as well as the main fanzone site in Victoria Square – and the opening and closing ceremonies, of course.
We deployed a total of 30 SIA staff during that period. The significant engagement we conducted with the private security industry contractors in the lengthy run-up to the Games undoubtedly influenced the significant levels of compliance.
As the fireworks went off at the closing ceremony on 08 August, it wasn’t just the athletes that deserved a gold medal. Every security officer, supplier, and all the SIA staff involved also earned a place on the podium for their contribution to ensuring the Games were not just great but safe.
Interesting article