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Back to main news pageCo-operation is key to success in defeating Scottish business crime
Alliances between business and the wider police community can have a significant impact on business crime, the Scottish Business Crime Centre (SBCC) told business and security managers at a Reliance Security Services crime prevention conference in Edinburgh this week.
Jim Smith, SBCC Project Manager, said that the impetus provided by working together to tackle common challenges has brought considerable dividends in the fight against business crime north of the border.
For example, in the 1990s, Scottish business had found itself prone to vehicle hijacking, with Mr Smith citing the M6 as a significant criminal problem.
However, the concerted efforts of the logistics industry and the other participants of the SBCC, which was founded in 1996, had all but eradicated the problem in the new millennium. “Through the actions of the SBCC, we’ve now effectively killed off hijacking in Scotland,” Mr Smith told delegates.
The founding principles of the organisation were designed to raise the profile of business crime amongst both the commercial sector and the police as a serious problem and one which had ramifications beyond the crime itself. These included:
• The sharing of good practice between businesses and the wider police family
• Being the focal point for all business crime information and dissemination
• Improving communications between police, organisations and business
• Raising awareness of business crime and the effect on the wider community
• Encouraging a higher level of reporting of business crime
Criminality of a different kind was the subject of an address on the new Corporate Manslaughter Act, due to come into force in April next year.
Brodies, an Edinburgh law firm, outlined the likely effects of the new legislation, with a call to businesses and organisations to pay closer attention to health and safety issues in relation to their employees.
Some observers have heralded the Act as a “landmark” in corporate law. Brodies said that this was because the new law brought much-needed clarification to this particular area of corporate law. The likely effect was that prosecutions were likely to be more forthcoming due to the wording in the Act which should give greater guidance to jurors on such issues as “breach of duty of care” to an employee.
The conference concluded with a presentation from a Counter Terrorist Security Adviser to Lothian and Borders police.
He said that the Glasgow airport attack had confirmed what the government security services had been saying for a long time – that no area of the UK was immune from attack. The huge extent of the threat faced by the country meant that the role played by British business was of fundamental importance.
He added that economic and commercial targets were very much part of the infrastructure that the terrorists were looking to attack and therefore intelligence about these sectors was essential to potential attackers.
The Government established NCTSO, the National Counter-Terrorism Security Office, to act as a liaison between the security forces and the police. NCTSO is supported by 136 Counter-Terrorism Security Advisers.
Their list of areas to protect has grown as intelligence has informed of the widening of potential terrorist targets. They now include power supplies, water provision and nuclear facilities.
With such a wide remit, the role of businesses in aiding the security situation was very important. Intelligence was key to any potential attack which generally relied on surveillance, photography and suchlike. Reporting on suspicious activity relating to observation of a company’s premises, employees and their security provision, was the kind of feedback welcomed by the police.
For more information contact:
Oona Rosser
Tel: 01895 205000
email: oona.rosser@reliancesecurity.co.uk