Are you ready to protect your business against terrorism?

The main threats to national security are terrorism, espionage, cyber threats and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, many of which impact on the UK's national infrastructure.

Understanding the threat facing us is key to ensuring protective security measures and mitigations are proportionate, effective and responsive.

Protect Duty is a new proposed piece of legislation which is currently under consultation and that will, for the first time, require many businesses to formally assess the risk of terror attack.

Mainly aimed at organisations that provide publically accessible space such as venues and events, Protect Duty will require them to conduct risk assessment reviews so that they understand what the risks are - and to take proportionate and reasonable measures to mitigate against them.

Here we look at the proposed Protect Duty legislation, specifically what it is and what action is needed by those affected - along with the preparations you can make to protect your business, regardless of type and size.

Who will be affected by Protect Duty?

The Home Office estimates that 650,000 UK businesses could be affected by the new legislation.
The three main areas it will potentially apply to are:

1. Public venues: e.g. entertainment and sports venues, tourist attractions, shopping centres with a capacity of 100 persons or more.
2. Large organisations: e.g. retail or entertainment chains employing 250 staff or more that operate at publicly accessible locations.
3. Public spaces: e.g. public parks, beaches, thoroughfares, bridges, town/city squares and pedestrianised areas. This includes event organisers using these spaces.

How will it affect your business/organisation?

The Government considers that the owners and operators of such public venues and large organisations should be required to:

• Use available information and guidance provided by the Government and the police to consider terrorist threats to the public and staff at locations they own or operate within
• Assess the potential impact of these risks across their operations and location, and through their systems and processes
• Consider and implement 'reasonably practicable' protective security and safety plans such as:

-        developing a strategy that ensures the site and its use have been assessed

-        suitable mitigation measures to protect staff

-        staff training for what to do in the event of an attack

• Develop a robust organisational plan on how to deal with, or act as a result of, a terrorist attack

Mitigating the Risks.

Central to the Protect Duty legislation will be the need for a competent person to undertake detailed, subjective risk assessments to identify vulnerabilities and what appropriate and proportionate mitigation measures need to be in place.

Such mitigation measures may include:

• multi agency planning and exercising
• training staff to identify and report suspicious behaviour and how to respond in a crisis
• live CCTV monitoring -  acts as both a deterrent and active security measure, especially when combined with a  police response
• vehicle stop points 
• access control - enabling management of who goes where and when, within your site. May include search and screening with or without the use of technology, such as full body scanners
• monitoring and patrols
• ability to lock down
• in-depth crisis response and communication plans

Importantly, any such risk assessments will need to be kept under review so that your mitigation measures keep pace with the inevitable changes terrorists will make to the way they carry out attacks.

What if my business isn't affected by Protect Duty?

Even if your organisation is not expected to be directly affected, it is important to consider how such attacks could impact any of your customers and suppliers, and the ultimate impact that would have on your own business.

For smaller organisations and venues, this would involve simple low-cost (or no-cost) preparedness measures, such as ensuring that staff are trained to:

• be aware of threats, likely attack methods and how to respond to them
• identify the signs of hostile reconnaissance and to take appropriate action

And that the organisation's response to different attack types is regularly updated and exercised.

The Protect Duty Consultation.

The consultation considers how legislation might be used to enhance the protection of publicly accessible locations across the UK from terrorist attacks and ensure organisational preparedness.

With some exceptions (e.g. on transport security and for certain sports grounds), there is no legislative requirement to consider or implement security measures at publicly accessible locations. However, there are many reasonable and appropriate measures which can be - and often already are - undertaken by organisations who operate at such locations. These include:

• Having security plans and procedures to react and respond to different threats which are understood by all staff and regularly exercised
• Having simple and freely available training and awareness courses in place as part of new staff and refresher training programmes
• Employing simple security measures (such as door locks, roller shutters) for crime prevention and anti-social behaviour, which may also be used in response to other security threats

An explanation of what the Protect Duty covers, and how to be part of the consultation process, can be found on the Government website.

What should I do to Prepare?

It is expected that a draft Bill will be introduced to parliament within the next 12-18 months with detailed guidance to follow.

Whether the new legislation directly affects you or not, now might be an excellent time to take stock of what provision you have in place to protect your operation from such outside threats and what choices you need to take regarding both your existing set-up and future projects.

Being aware of how a terrorist attack on your business (or others significant to your business) can impact your people and operations, will better enable you to plan for how to protect them.