As we bring in 2012, we naturally start to consider what the new year will hold for us. We’ll just have to hope these 12 months, when Britain will take centre-stage, doesn’t mimic Cameron’s thinning hair-line. The Olympics should bring business, fame and cultural prestige, but, it also brings security concerns on a global scale. In an event that puts London on the centre of the world stage and coverage that is going to be seen by 15 per cent of the world’s population; it’s fair to say the government cannot afford to mess up.
Historically, the games have been at the heart of global politics. From the 1936 Olympics in Germany, where the Games were used to try and reinforce Nazi ideology, to the 1972 Munich Massacre, we can see that the competition is a catalyst for conflict. The Guardian wrote that the disaster of the Munich Olympics “launched the new era of international terrorism.” With such global wounds being opened at the games, in a context of a precarious withdrawal from the Middle-East, the government should be, and are, taking Olympic security very seriously.
In a recent statement, Lord Coe raised warranted concerns about the security status of the events. He says “There has to be proportionality here. You don’t want people coming to London thinking they’ve walked into siege city.” Coe appears to have overlooked the 13,500 personnel the Ministry of Defence are providing, alongside the HMS Ocean (the largest ship in the Royal Navy just in case you were getting worried), which has recently returned from Libya. It comes as no surprise to learn over £533m will now be spent on security. Included in this cool sum are surface-to-air missiles. Casual. Is anybody else thinking ‘over-reaction’ yet? Arms suppliers will benefit greatly from this transaction so I think we can sense who had a lot of security advice to give… having said that, it’s safe to say we can lay any terrorism concerns we may have had to rest. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 100,000 condoms were handed out for free; our protection might be weapons but with China to compete with, now at least, terror prevention is one less thing for the organisers to worry about coming up short on.
There does seem to be a lot of attention on the armed forces, but we shouldn’t overlook civilian efforts. It has been rumoured there will be a whopping 24,000 Konrad replicas training as security personnel to safeguard the 100 plus Olympic venues, although there might be a slight problem with executing this plan as the country doesn’t have that many Konrads (now breathe), so students have been recruited to make up the numbers.
The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) is primarily responsible for arranging the recruitment of security staff, however a majority of this colossal task has been undertaken by private security companies headed by G4S. Perhaps the promises made when we ran our Olympic bid, to generate more business for UK companies might actually become a reality, making a pleasant change from the countless broken promises made by the government so far.
Although 24,000 security guards will be patrolling the Games, this won’t be just managing the queues for the beach volleyball. The security have been tasked with taking care of everything from terrorist threats to drunken spectators. They will also be providing security for the party area Russian events tycoon Sergei Kolushev has swung for the teams. He’s managed to appropriate Perks field, by Kensington Palace. Not only does the security have to worry about how much gin Queen Lizzie guzzles, they have to deal with the possibility that we may have a couple of Russian weightlifters meandering drunkenly along the Mall.
With this as just one example of the fringe activites of the Olympics, door supervisors, as well as general security, will be needed in abundance. Bill Fox, M.D. of security training firm Maybo, stresses that, “for most hospitality and events providers and retailers the biggest worry is not terror – it is getting sufficient qualified security personnel to meet venue license requirements.” Whilst drunken Russians might not be the terror threat that had been predicted, the biggest threat to safety will come from the high concentration of people being organised in the day-to-day activities of the Games.
G4S, the company that got the dream security gig, did their homework for 2012 very thoroughly. I bet you didn’t think that those muscled security guards could be geeks as well. ‘G4S teen’, was launched in 2007 as an athlete development programme, which supported young athletes with aspirations to compete in the 2012 Olympics. You can definitely see that it’s in their interests for it all to go smoothly. Double Olympic Champion Haile Gebrselassie, ambassador for G4S, states that the “level of commitment that G4S have shown to the members of the team is impressive.”
With G4S also supporting the GB sailing team, it would seem that for once the government seems to have picked a candidate that knows the field they’re working. It’s good to see fair play in British society being enacted in the business world and that filling up your CV brings benefits.
G4S is clearly dedicated to investing in sports, but with 12,000 athletes, and 10 million in attendance at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, there is a worry that G4S’s priorities are elsewhere. We saw in last summer’s riots that multiple locations are difficult to protect, and with over 100 venues to keep secure, G4S will definitely have their work cut out. The numerous security situations demand different priorities, but with G4S adverts saying “you only need to apply for one role and attend one interview to be on our system for London 2012,” there is definitely a danger that not all scenarios will be covered.
G4S is working with Bridging-the-Gap, which has government funding intended to pay for the training of new security staff for the upcoming games. The training course (run partly by ESST)will typically last just a short four days. With security recruits coming from all over the country, needing to be ready by summer, it seems priorities really are “logistical more than quality” as put by Fox. The brief training course on offer for the new security recruits, leaves those attending with little more than shaken confidence in the standard of security to be expected.
The accumulation of these concerns has amalgamated into a worry that the 2012 Games will leave behind a sour legacy. When talking about the security staff post-Olympics, Fox comments that “there will probably be a significant proportion that disappear prior to, or do not secure Olympics work in the first place and after the Olympics there will be less demand for staff.
Many of those training will not be suited to the traditional role of a door supervisor, i.e. in the licensed retail sector, but they may get general security work.” This doesn’t paint a rosy picture of how taxes are being spent on numerous low value qualifications. However, Georgia Harris, 18, from Hitchin, who currently studies Health and Social Care at NHC, commented: “I’ve already got a job lined up for when I qualify, I’m going to work at local clubs and events and also hopefully at the Olympics.”
If (a big if) we can take this as a general picture, and do a better job of maintaining the sporting legacy that the competition will leave, then there could be a lot more sports events taking place in the country after 2012 for which we will have a ready-made security army on hand. This is the best case scenario. It’s not hard to imagine that, if we fail to keep this sporting spirit, combined with the millions that is going to be spent in removing facilities from some events afterwards, the wasted money and potential will be hard on taxpayers.