Dick Dasterdly

With this job being a one off for many involved I can imagine there being a few cock ups from situations that couldn't easily be foreseen.
Let's hope none of them are costly.

I notice one of the G4S guys has already been caught asleep on duty and I imagine there will be plenty of others amongst them looking for an easy ride.

Probably need extra security guys to go round checking that they all stay awake and on their toes or else a few army guys giving them an occasional poke in the ribs with a rifle.

Though that would never do, just imagine the outcry.

rugbymatt

G4S lost a massive contract in the US guarding the countries nuclear power stations when it emerged that staff would regularly sleep during their shifts.... On one site all the staff were fast asleep and the site itself contained enough uranium to fuel 2400 missiles.

Who gave this lot the contract again?

Dick Dasterdly

Not me Guv.

Domino

too big a contract covering too many sites, should have been split between companies more local to the venues

did G4S ever get everyone SIA approved or are they just taking them at their word they can pass a CRB and know the law ?
none of the soldiers will be SIA/CRB.

my bil was promised a driving job at the Olympics by a major temp agency, kept changing the start date, in the end he found other work, another agency thought the original didnt have the contract anyway.

Dick Dasterdly

Much the same problems with all these so called security companies, large or small.

They rarely attract intelligent and conscientious staff, but rather guys who have not held regular jobs for all to obvious reasons and are only looking for an easy ride and easy money.
In most cases they don't really care,apart from doing basic background checks,as all they look for are bodies to make up the numbers,so they get paid out on their big fat contracts.

I imagine it wouldn't be difficult for a terrorist organisation to recruit and use one or two of them as inside men.
Who knows, some of the so called security guys themselves could well be a major threat ?

HBG

An important job like guarding the Olympics should never have gone to a private security firm. It should have been left to the police and armed services. It wasn't because of the costs involved, normal private security staff are paid peanuts and attract low-quality staff who are prepared to work for peanuts.

It's an enormous task; the navy will guard the danger from the Thames, the airforce will guard the danger from above, the army, even in great numbers, will be severely stretched, because the danger is likely to come down the M1 and M6, from people with British passports putting suitcases on to coaches in Manchester and Birmingham, without any Xray machines to check their contents, at either end.

And if those coach passengers are named Mohammed. or Seamus, or Richard will never be known. It would, historically, make sense to concentrate on the Mohammeds, and brown people from Yorkshire and the West Midlands.

I don't wish to offend anyone, and I'm not a racist, but it's plain common sense.

steviedeluxe

Have to disagree with you on this one.

If the security forces only target those with an Islamic name, or those from a ME (or Pakistani) background, it wouldn't be a sound tactic. The terrorists would soon learn to use Brit converts (of whom there are 1000s) to get past this.

So not common sense at all.

stuboy

[QUOTE=Domino;10176019]too big a contract covering too many sites, should have been split between companies more local to the venues

I agree entirely, it was from the start an impossible task. The govt. saw a cheap bid and the security company saw a big fee.

HBG hit the nail on the head when he said it should never have been put out to tender as a whole

Dick Dasterdly

[QUOTE=stuboy;10176163] On the other hand if a number of companies were involved then a fair degree of interaction would be required between them and by the time everyone was organised well enough to be on the same wavelength the whole damned shooting match could well be over.
The security issue is already very complex and I could only see that adding to the difficulties.
It's not just a question of money by any means.

Pecora Nera

I worked for an Events security company in the UK, We used to provide security for sport and music events. It was a nightmare trying to make sure we had enough staff for a normal event.

When we ran the security for Royal Ascot we would run the event but around 8 other security companies were subcontracted to supply staff to us. The event was only 3 or 4 days but making sure we had the correct numbers was very difficult. And as an earlier poster said there was a lot of mohammads and numpties that struggled to speak any english.

G4S ran a few events, they ran Wimbledon only because they were the main sponsor. When the Olympics was announced G4S started to buy up event security companies, ours was big and one of the first to go. Within 6 months nearly all the managers were made redundant, the same happened to another large company called Rock Steady.

I received my company car and never bothered to wash it because I knew my redundancy papers were being typed. I was there long enough to pass over my sales contacts.

There are only a certain number of security staff and no way can they stop working for there normal events for a month to work at the olympics. Some of the security staff work doors at pubs and clubs at weekends and then events during the week. Or they work alternate weekends at the local football ground. It is crazy to think one company can run the whole event.

I hope the Olympics go ok, but I really hope G4S fall flat on their face.

johnnyone

I like to believe the teething problems will quickly be sorted and soon forgotten once the Games get underway.

Pecora Nera

No the press have got their teeth into this, they will make it very hard for G4S, also G4S have to work with the police and the police are no fans of private security firms.

There is a term in event security called ghosting, it is where you are supposed to have 400 stewards / security personal but you only have 350 or 375 because some of the staff don't turn up.

Obviously the security company charge for all 400. But because the staff are spread out over a large event it is very difficult for the event organiser to account for everyone. But I think because of the overall security at the Olympics this is not possible.

We tried all sorts of things to get the numbers right, we would ask 450 stewards to turn up when we needed 400, sometimes we would get it right and have 400 sometime all 450 would turn up and we would then give 50 people a £5 and send them home, or send people home who had trainers on or didn't have the proper white shirt on. It is a nightmare, now multiply that problem by the number of staff they need.

rugbymatt

It was sort of inevitable that a thread about the biggest sporting event in the world, something that should be an honour to host and an honour to be part of, somewhere that should be the platform and showcase for sporting prowess and the handwork that all sportspeople have slaved towards for the last 4 years and beyond but no, people are too interested in slagging the event off, slagging the sports off, in fact, slagging everything off. Is it ANY wonder we are called whiners? Is it ANY wonder that so many people see us as complainers and moaners?

I for one can't wait. Yeah there have been a few problems but the venues are finished (just), they look absolutely amazing (an industry site I am involved with have several landscapers on that were involved with the games) and now that the Army, and the Police, are involved with the security we have a security we can put our trust in. Enjoy it, if you don't like sport, don't enjoy it. If you would rather watch a bloke running in a straight line in 9 seconds then shower him with praise rather than a skilled rider controlling a ton of unpredictable animal then fill your boots but FFS, stop bitching, moaning and whining! You all need to listen to yourselves, sanctimonious, pompous, holier than thou attitudes from armchair sports fans!

Domino

as I said earlier, there was talk in other areas that G4S were not proactively working on the contract last year.
You are aware of the need for compliance with SIA and CRB, you can't just walk in and put on a coat and do the job. But there were no efforts to get people thru and on the books.

G4S were telling the Govt everything was in hand only 2 weeks ago - there are going to be a number of heads rolling over this and quite rightly. Co shares will take a huge pasting, investors will see losses. Too many managers were too frightened of their directors to tell them the truth, the directors were too far from the coal face to know they were being lied to.

The problem is that security guards are treated like cleaners - the lowest of the low, paid NMW, abused by both sides. I worked against my own management to get larger increases for our security guards - I couldnt expect a family man with responsibilities to look after a £10m building that provided over £200m income for 14 hours thru the nite for NMW.

Pecora Nera

I like the sport, and the UK has a lot to be proud of. "You are correct when you say that now that the Army and the Police are involved with the security we can put trust in it"

I was commenting on G4S. Anyone who has been involved in stewarding or private security knew it was impossible to meet the security or stewarding requirements using one company, who prior to 2005 only managed tennis and golf events.

I trust I am not included in "stop bitching, moaning and whining! You all need to listen to yourselves, sanctimonious, pompous, holier than thou attitudes from armchair sports fans!"