Government Counter Terrorism Is Not Private Sector Counter Terrorism
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Across the UK, specialist panels are discussing Martyn’s Law and how organisations should prepare for its introduction.
But a crucial voice is too often missing. Private sector security practitioners who have actually designed, implemented and maintained counter terrorism capability inside commercial organisations.
That matters because understanding legislation and the terrorism threat is not the same as knowing how to make protective security work inside a business when people, operations and potentially the future of the organisation depend upon it.
Government agencies, regulators and national counter terrorism specialists bring essential expertise. They can explain the threat, legislation and regulatory expectations. The problem begins when the conversation moves from what must be achieved to how an organisation actually makes it work, and what happens when things go wrong.
Knowing the requirement is not the same as knowing how to deliver it.
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The Private Sector Challenge
Government counter terrorism can involve intelligence, policing, investigation, specialist resources, statutory powers and national security structures.
Private sector protective security operates in a different environment.
The practitioner must translate threat and requirements into proportionate measures that work within the organisation. That means understanding operations, people, infrastructure, budgets, customers, contractors, stakeholders and existing systems.
Every organisation is different. Every solution has to work within that organisation.
Training provides a simple example. Saying 2,000 employees require training is easy. Developing and maintaining their capability across different locations and shifts, without continually removing people from productive work, requires a very different level of understanding.
That is the difference between knowing what should happen and knowing how to make it happen.
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The Full Cycle of Protection
This is where the discussion needs to go further.
Martyn’s Law focuses on protecting people from terrorism. But for the organisation, the consequences of an attack can create further threats that also need to be understood and mitigated.
The immediate response may only last minutes or hours. The consequences can last for years.
A serious incident can move rapidly from emergency response into crisis management, investigation, recovery and business continuity. It may bring regulatory scrutiny, questions of liability, legal action, financial loss and reputational damage.
Decisions made before and during an incident can therefore shape what happens long after the immediate danger has passed. People may have been killed or injured. Operations may have stopped. Families, employees, regulators, investigators, insurers, customers and the media may all want answers.
And the organisation still has to recover.
In extreme circumstances, the consequences can threaten whether it recovers at all.
Experienced private sector practitioners have to think across that complete cycle: preparedness, response, recovery and continuity.
Protecting people remains the priority. But organisational resilience also means protecting operations and the organisation itself from the consequences that follow.
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Completing the Panel
This is why experienced private sector practitioners need to be part of these discussions.
The answer is not to replace government, regulatory or national counter terrorism expertise. It is to complete it.
Effective panels should bring those specialists together with practitioners who understand how protective security is designed, integrated, exercised and maintained inside real organisations.
The legislation defines requirements. The threat informs what organisations need to prepare for. Private sector experience helps turn both into capability that works when it is actually needed.
That combination gives organisations something far more valuable: an understanding of what is required, why it matters and how it can realistically be delivered and maintained.
Because after an attack, an organisation will not be judged by how well it understood the theory.
It will have to live with what actually happened.
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About the Article Author
Anthony Gledhill is the founder of Mildot Group and a protective security and counter terrorism practitioner with experience spanning military operations, corporate security leadership and consultancy. His private sector work has included designing, implementing and maintaining protective security, crisis management and business continuity capability in complex international organisations, working from operational level through to senior corporate leadership.