Does the first report from the Manchester Arena bombing enquiry preface a watershed moment for event security?

By Simon Garrett

I have deliberately chosen to write in the first person for this update as these observations are very much based on my personal experiences in counter terrorism (CT) operations, a subsequent period as the Operations Director of Earls Court with responsibility for security at numerous high-profile concerts and most recently as a security advisor to event organisations in the UK and overseas.

The first report by Sir John Saunders from the enquiry into the Ariana Grande concert bombing at the Manchester Arena that killed 22 people makes bleak reading for the events industry.?The incident has already given rise to the new Protect Duty, the consultation process for which ends on the 2nd July.?My worry is that whilst there are undoubtedly lessons to be learned, such a damming report (and there are two more to follow) feeds into the public narrative that has dominated the last eighteen months that events are dangerous and require high levels of government intervention to make them safe.?As we struggle to recover from the lockdown this could be hugely damaging.

Without the benefit of being present at the enquiry and privy to all the evidence I can only comment in general terms on the specifics of the findings.?There is no disputing the facts of the report but the events industry does need to think carefully how it responds to the conclusions.?We need to be careful to show due regard for the findings of this report and those to follow, but also offer a measured narrative to point out that risk free events are not a realistic possibility unless every event is to have G7 summit levels of security.

It is worth looking briefly at some of the key findings.?The headline ‘police took two-hour break to for a kebab’ is illustrative of the general finding that all parties had let down their guard.?However, it is necessary to consider the context.?At the time there had been some low-tech attacks in London but prior to that, it had been twelve years since a civilian had been killed on the UK mainland by a terrorist attack which were the terrible events of the ‘7/7’ bombings in 2005.?I recall in the days of the Royal Tournament (a military tattoo) in Earls Court in the late 90’s we had almost daily bomb threats and security alerts.?For over three decades the terrorist threat in the UK from Irish Republican terrorism was a clear and present danger every day of our lives.?The atrocities of the fundamentalist inspired attacks of recent years are actually far less frequent and lethal than previous eras.?They are also far less predictable.?Protect Duty will place a duty on those responsible to assess threat but to what extent is that actually going to be possible without specific intelligence from the security services??Can every event truly prepare for a suicide bomber who, let’s face it, detonated his device outside the actual arena?

SMG, the company that runs the arena and Showsec, the stewarding company, are both castigated for failings, most notably for failing to spot the suspicious activities of the bomber and act on a report by a member of the public that identified him as suspicious.?Spotting behaviour that does not fit is one of our best defences in an industry that deals with large crowds and those organisations will have to answer for those specific failings but it also raises the question as to what extent behaviour profiling and related skills, like counter hostile surveillance, can be found in every organisation responsible for a public space with a capacity of over 100 as Protect Duty proposes.?It sounds obvious and easy but a young man with a rucksack in a mainline railway station does not on its own stand out.?Picking out people on their appearance is fraught with sensitivities.?There is also a tendency in our industry to conflate crowd ‘safety’ with ‘security’.?Stewarding companies like Showsec are engaged primarily to manage the most obvious and always present risks arising from large crowds such as crushing or violence.?Their managers and supervisors are trained in crowd dynamics.?On the night this would have been their key focus.?To what extent will we now expect all stewarding companies to provide CT advice in addition to crowd management?

My experience of the event stewarding business is that the reality is less about ‘security’ per se, and more about the necessary skill of mobilising large numbers of vetted, uniformed staff with a given level of training for the very irregular demands of the events industry.?Whilst this is not necessarily true of well-resourced venues and events, broadly, the events industry needs to confront the issue that this mostly results in simply putting a warm body in a hi vis vest in a doorway with little in the way of relevant training and little incentive to do much beyond counting the hours until their next break.?Turnover of staff is high which means that large amounts of money spent on vetting and training staff is wasted.?Margins are also low.?The events industry gets the security provision that it pays for and minimum wage rates of pay and the nature of the irregular employment prospects are a constant challenge when it comes to keeping a roll call of competent staff.?It is reasonable to assume that the security industry will enthusiastically welcome the proposals in the Protect Duty consultation because it will mean that venues and event organisers will be held directly accountable for the level and quality of the security provision, in a way that they have largely avoided before, which will drive up standards.?In future ‘manned security’, for want of a better term, will cost more and rightly so.

SMG were singled out for criticism for failing to ‘instruct an expert in security’ to conduct a comprehensive review of the arrangements in place.?This begs the question as to what is meant by a ‘security expert’.?Unlike safety, there is no established professional ladder of competence that is universal within the events industry.?Former military and police operatives with glittering careers in dealing with the enemies of the state will not necessarily have the skill set to translate their expertise into a civilian environment.?They are accustomed to operating with far more resources for a start.?I went from a CT environment with access to one of the most advanced intelligence networks in the world to the local beat constable at Earls Court.?Granted things have moved on since then but pre-pandemic the police were cutting resources allocated to events.?The new law also plans for there to be an inspectorate to enforce it.?The most obvious vehicle of choice for this is the local authority Safety Advisory Group (SAG) system.?The best of these are staffed with officials who are themselves credible authorities on event safety but many local authorities, especially those without a major venue on their patch, lack these resources and expertise.?The big issue is that if consultants and the new ‘inspectors’ are not confident in their abilities then the ‘precautionary principle’ will apply.?This is the same approach that has seen the events business locked down since March last year.?It is also likely to considerably ramp up the costs if advisors and inspectors take a heavy-handed and disproportionate approach to cover their own potential personal liabilities in law.?

The stakes are very high.?The families of the 22 victims are, understandably, calling for charges of Corporate Manslaughter against the organisations and the report will open the door for substantial civil claims.?Corporate Manslaughter charges can only be brought if the failings resulted from failings at senior management level which could yet mean criminal charges brought against senior individuals.?The new Protect Duty law is likely to make individuals very cautious when signing off security plans.?It raises the question as to the extent that anyone is likely to accept such a role in future.?

New law in the wake of a disaster can have a very positive impact.?This year is the 50th anniversary of the 1971 Ibrox disaster where a crush among the crowd at an Old Firm football game, led to 66 deaths and more than 200 injuries.?It happened on?2nd January 1971?in an exit stairway at Ibrox Park (now Ibrox Stadium) in Glasgow, Scotland and was the worst British football disaster until the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. ?The stadium's owner,?Rangers F.C., was later ruled to be at fault and was sued for damages in 60 cases brought by relatives of the dead. ?There was no prospect of a prosecution since this pre dated even the Health and Safety at Work Act which came into force in 1974.?The disaster spurred the UK government to look into safety at sports grounds and the findings from the subsequent enquiry formed the basis for the?Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds (Green Guide), first published in 1973. ?It also led to the formation of The Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA) which is?the UK Government’s expert body on safety at sports grounds which writes guidance, including the Green Guide, and carries out a range of statutory and advisory functions in relation to football in the UK.?

The Green Guide transformed safety at football grounds and similar sports stadia and it may be that Protect Duty will have a similar benign and transformative effect on event security.?There is a difference, however.?The Safety at Sports Grounds Act which gives the Guide force of law is applicable only to designated places of sport normally at elite level.?It does not, as the Protect Duty consultation proposes, apply to any sports venue with a capacity of over 100.?The Manchester Arena bombing is shaping up to be one of those watershed incidents, like Ibrox, Hillsborough and many others that changed the events business forever.?The events industry needs to study this report and subsequent reports.?In the meantime, it is vital that event companies event professionals engage in the consultation process on the Protect Duty (as many already have) to help to ensure that whatever results is proportionate and a genuine enhancement to event security.

The consultation closes on 2nd July.

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/protect-duty