Report: AEV Security Working Group, October 26th 2016

The AEV Security Working Group held its last meeting of 2016 at Ricoh Arena on October 26, with Andy Coulson of Farnborough International in the chair. Coulson opened the meeting with a welcome to all members and thanking Ricoh Arena for hosting the event. New members were introduced and welcomed to the group by the chair and the apologies were read, before the group approved the minutes of the last meeting.

With the formalities concluded and at the invitation of the group at the last meeting, Gavin Macpherson from the National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO), began his presentation on document fraud.  Macpherson began the presentation by explaining that he would be essentially summarising the 2-hour document fraud workshop offered by NaCTSO for free to groups of up to 20 people.

Macpherson then gave the group a background and history of the methodology for spotting document fraud, how it was developed and how it is applied. The thrust of the workshops is to increase the knowledge and understanding around identity documents for employers, so they can be satisfied they know the identity of every employee.

The workshops also contain a strong practical element with examples of real and fake documents, and workshop attendees are invited to use techniques like UV illumination to detect the fakes. Macpherson concluded his presentation with a video called “Take Another Look”.

Rachel Parker, AEV director suggested that the AEV could coordinate document awareness workshops for members' HR departments through the newly created industry HR ‘supergroup', and the group agreed that AEV should raise this at the next HR Working Group meeting in November.

The next person to address the group was Dave Humphries of the Security Industry Authority (SIA), who gave the group an update on the changes in the regulation of the private security industry. Humphries reported that some initial problems with the new licensing system were being resolved, and that the SIA had met with its new minister, who endorsed its 3 key purposes, public protection, safeguarding the vulnerable, and national security.

With the guest presentations complete, the group moved on to the agenda discussion topics, and in place of Mike Pearce of NaCTSO who was unable to attend, Gavin Macpherson delivered NaCTSO's counter terrorism and national security update.

The group then turned its attention to the use and standardisation of emergency code words, following a query from a security contractor working at a member venue. There appears to be a number of differences in the code words used for emergencies by security staff at different venues. It was questioned whether there was any value in standardising code words across the association to simplify matters and avoid ambiguity. In the discussion that followed, it was noted that today a number of security staff and radio operatives use earpieces, and radio traffic is not heard by the public, and also that there were a number of venues that don't use emergency code words at all.

The next discussion topic for the group revolved around the weapons section of the eGuide, and whether any changes were required. The group noted that there was an increase in costumed events which often include weapons and replica weapons, and that this was proving to be a pressing security issue. One member suggested that their venue was considering a blanket ban on these items being brought into the venue, although it was noted that these items are sometimes on sale at the events in question. The group agreed to keep a close eye on these events, and let the AEV know of any changes they felt may be required for the next iteration of the eGuide weapons section.

Staying with the eGuide, the group then heard that the Aerial Equipment and Demonstrations section of the eGuide had been revised to include recommendations on drones, and group members were invited to review the section and give their feedback to the AEV.

Parker then informed the group that Simon Garrett, Health & Safety consultant, had made a risk assessment template available to the AEV, that his organisers have used at European venues where there were security concerns. It was felt that organisers may soon start asking for venue risk assessments from their venues, and Parker suggested that members who did not have a template could use this template in whole or part.

With the discussion topics completed, the group began the round table news and venue updates, which included news of the ground being broken at the new conference centre at Farnborough International and new security features at the NEC.

Concluding the round table news, the chair asked members to suggest agenda items for the next meeting and send them to AEV's Kim Dance. The time and place for next year's meeting were agreed on as Wednesday 03 May 2017 at Olympia London and Wednesday 25 October 2017. Ben Collins offered to host this meeting at Goodwood.

Any Other Business followed, and the chair explained that he sits on the CPIE (Crowded Places Information Exchange) board on behalf of the group, which meets about 3 times a year. The CPIE talks about crowded places and has many different types of organisations sitting on the group. The CPIE would like the AEV Security Working Group to become a sub group, as it is an established group of event venues which regularly meets to talk about industry topics. Parker updated the group with changes to the AEV team, including the appointment of Dani Bull to membership executive, and the formation of the AEV board steering groups.

The chair then thanked all members of their attendance and contributions, and closed the meeting.