Olympic Security Fiasco

londonsurrey

Occasionally, there are these quotes on the news that are absolute gems:

The chap in charge of G4 admitted that he "did not know, categorically, if all the security staff spoke fluent English" :rotfl:

Seriously? What kind of interviews and questionnaires are they using in their recruitment process?

And they're supposed to be training them. If they don't know if the recruits can speak English properly, then are these people just being blathered at (in English) during training, and then pushed out as "qualified"?

FatVonD

If the article in the Daily Mail today is to be believed (I know, I know, I just love 'Weekend' magazine, it's a design thing!) then some of them don't. They were apparently guided on screen on how to fill in thier name, address and date of birth. And someone still got it wrong!

Tropez

I wouldn't pay too much attention to media reports. I'm not a fan of G4S, largely because I work for a competitor, but the fact is that the private security industry is so heavily vetted and licensed in the UK that it is highly unlikely that someone who is deployed for the Olympics is going to have a major problem that jeopardises their ability to do their job.

londonsurrey

Tropez, that is interesting.

Do you happen to know why they're having so much trouble recruiting the requisite staff? There was someone just on Radio 4, saying that he and his wife are ex-military, and their daughter is a fully qualified security bod. She wrote to G4S, and they didn't even bother to reply.

warehouse

Are these reports coming from the same place that suggested Euro 2012 would be a bloodbath?

londonsurrey

warehouse wrote: »

Are these reports coming from the same place that suggested Euro 2012 would be a bloodbath?

I don't know. These reports are from the BBC. Did they suggest that Euro 2012 would be a bloodbath?

Tropez

londonsurrey wrote: »

Tropez, that is interesting.

Do you happen to know why they're having so much trouble recruiting the requisite staff? There was someone just on Radio 4, saying that he and his wife are ex-military, and their daughter is a fully qualified security bod. She wrote to G4S, and they didn't even bother to reply.

Honestly, I reckon they left it too long and became complacent.

They're one of the largest employers in the world (something like top 5, I'd have to check to be certain) and they probably thought that they would already have adequate staff but they also tend to be the company that gets the juicy contracts (airports, prisons, government jobs, the Olympics) and there's been a few managerial changes there and from what I've heard a failure in communication between the lower and middle managers and the executives. Similar thing happened with Nokia resulting in a lot of their troubles.

So the chances are that the people who should have been talking to each other haven't and this has led to various departments in their complacency making assumptions about what the other is doing rather than people actually asking the questions. From what I heard, they only realised a matter of two months ago what a disaster they had on their hands and have been desperately trying to fix it.

What I will say in their defence though is that the organisers didn't give them the contract until last year. Now we all knew they were going to get the contract but they can't actually do anything about fulfilling it until it is all signed and sealed. Given the fact London was attacked the day after we were awarded the games in the first place, I think a lot of messing about on the part of the organisers and the government has taken place because there was no reason to wait so long to award the contract.

As for the couple on Radio 4, they'd probably make great employees. One problem is, private security is the number one employer of ex-military and police personnel and all companies deal with a high number of applications from these people (as well as others) and it really depends on how efficient the department dealing with applications is working as to when they get a response. G4S has likely diverted a lot of resources right now.

londonsurrey

Tropez wrote: »

Honestly, I reckon they left it too long and became complacent.

They're one of the largest employers in the world (something like top 5, I'd have to check to be certain) and they probably thought that they would already have adequate staff but they also tend to be the company that gets the juicy contracts (airports, prisons, government jobs, the Olympics) and there's been a few managerial changes there and from what I've heard a failure in communication between the lower and middle managers and the executives. Similar thing happened with Nokia resulting in a lot of their troubles.

So the chances are that the people who should have been talking to each other haven't and this has led to various departments in their complacency making assumptions about what the other is doing rather than people actually asking the questions. From what I heard, they only realised a matter of two months ago what a disaster they had on their hands and have been desperately trying to fix it.

What I will say in their defence though is that the organisers didn't give them the contract until last year. Now we all knew they were going to get the contract but they can't actually do anything about fulfilling it until it is all signed and sealed. Given the fact London was attacked the day after we were awarded the games in the first place, I think a lot of messing about on the part of the organisers and the government has taken place because there was no reason to wait so long to award the contract.

As for the couple on Radio 4, they'd probably make great employees. One problem is, private security is the number one employer of ex-military and police personnel and all companies deal with a high number of applications from these people (as well as others) and it really depends on how efficient the department dealing with applications is working as to when they get a response. G4S has likely diverted a lot of resources right now.

Thank you. It's really interesting to have a point of view from within the industry.

rachbc

call me paranoid but I was wondering this morning if this is actually an excuse to draft the military in as they know of a threat that means they need the military there but they don't want to scare people off coming by saying so.....

Jennifer_Jane

A friend of mine needed Olympic accreditation and was told to arrive to collect his ID (he'd already applied some weeks previously) after 09:00 on Wednesday. He was told it would take 20 minutes. It took 3 hours - of standing, of course. He says that G4S were doing the security and nobody seemed to speak English and placing people in various queues. The desks were only open from 10:00 and people were eventually told just to go home because it was getting too late and was too much. It should be pointed out that I don't know if they were responsible for the actual ID bit and my point is that the G4S scandal may be the tip of the iceberg. We need to be pointing fingers at LOCOG who are the responsible people for the Games' organisation.

Just bear in mind that this wasn't 'The Games', this was comparatively few people queuing to pick up ID cards. "Olympishambles". Labour should be quizzed on the LOCOG team, and the Coalition on why over the last two years, they didn't make more changes.

Sir Ian Johnston is the LOCOG person responsible for Security. He has 44 years as a policeman including 8 years as Chief of the Force. If anyone knew that the military/police should be involved, you would have thought he would. He seems to be keeping very quiet. Very quiet indeed!

londonsurrey

Does anyone know why the military was told that they weren't needed all those years ago? Was it a matter of kudos, was it a monetary thing, etc?