Perspectives on The Protect Duty

The Protect Duty legislation may oblige venues to assess the terrorist risk, train staff to identify terrorist activity, have a plan in place to respond to a terrorist attack and also devise practical security measures to reduce the likelihood of an attack. The Government is also considering the establishment of an inspectorate to enforce Protect Duty compliance.

Training venue staff sounds like a simple measure, but it begs many questions. For example, how many staff should be trained? To what standard should they be trained? How often? Who will fund this training? There are potential downsides, too. Training staff at the 650,000 venues (ie potentially well over one million individuals) is essentially the mass mobilisation of a citizen counter-terrorism force.

Training is also likely to arouse the fear of terrorism rather than reduce its likelihood. It may make staff more suspicious of people from minority groups (who often lack trust in the authorities) whose feelings of marginalisation could well increase. Therefore, it may serve to heighten the threat it intends to counter.

Counter-terrorism planning

A counter-terrorism plan requires specialist skills. Many organisations would need to hire a consultant to advise on how to mitigate the threat from terrorists armed with bombs, guns, knives or using vehicles for ramming attacks.

Sophisticated measures are needed to prevent a determined terrorist. If there is effective security in place, bear in mind that a determined terrorist will seek an easier target: a bus stop, a shop or a town square. In short, the threat posed is displaced rather than diminished.

A consultant may recommend a range of counter-terrorism measures, from hostile vehicle mitigation right through to regular exercises of the plan. This would impose expense without necessarily making people more secure. As is the case for many – if not most – security measures, demonstrating value for money for those with the purse strings can often be a very difficult task.

Paying for counter-terrorism measures, and especially so during these times of economic hardship, would be something of a challenge and notably for those venues – such as small theatres or countryside pubs – where the prospect of a terror attack seems implausible.

Threat analysis

Threat analysis is absolutely key to determining security measures. The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) has been telling us that, for most of the past 20 years, the prospect of a terrorist attack is ‘highly likely’. What does this actually mean, though?

Since 2000, circa 95 people have been killed by terrorists in the UK (74 of them in just two attacks, namely 7/7 and the Manchester Arena attack). On average, then, four people are killed each year by terrorists on home shores. In the same period, somewhere in the region of 16,000 individuals (ie 800 per year) were murdered. Over 50,000 – at an average of 2,500 per annum – were killed on the UK’s road network.

Despite JTAC’s dire warnings, the risk of being killed by a terrorist in the UK is remote. Somewhere between being killed by a horse (an average of four people suffer this fate per annum) or a cow (about six people per year).

Whether these are reasonable comparisons depends on how risk is defined. Many in the security industry use an objective equation: risk = likelihood x impact. However, when it comes to terrorism, politicians and the media use an emotional equation: risk = outrage x impact.

As risk is also very much about predicting the future, we tend to overlook decades of data and rely on fear. Of course, a major terror attack could occur in the future, but it’s unlikely to significantly change the overall data. Terrorism is a minor risk, then, but certainly a major fear.

Actionable information

JTAC perpetuates fear by implying that a terrorist attack is imminent. However, the organisation doesn’t provide actionable information about where, when or how such an episode might materialise, which then deflects responsibility on to the venue owners.

Noting JTAC’s assessment that a terrorist attack was ‘highly likely’, Sir John Saunders (chair of the Manchester Arena Inquiry) observed: “Everybody concerned with security at the Manchester Arena should have been doing their job in the knowledge that a terrorist attack might occur on that night.”

Surely, if the terrorist threat at the Manchester Arena was indeed ‘highly likely’, armed police ought to have been deployed? Anticipating terrorist attacks is an extremely difficult task. It’s unhelpful to issue vague and universal warnings, which then shifts the responsibility/blame on to venue owners.

The Government states that any Protect Duty measures should be “proportionate”. This is easy to say, but somewhat hard to define. If JTAC’s threat assessments are applied universally, then every venue will need Protect Duty measures to be in situ. If the management team at a given venue – let’s say a bingo hall in Aberystwyth, for example – can assess threats posed to that location, can it not also decide that the terrorist threat is so low it deems no measures are needed?

Protect Duty measures may also include an inspectorate to check compliance and issue penalties around proven non-compliance. Inevitably, this would have significant resource implications. Inspecting 650,000 venues, even every two years, is likely to require an organisation totalling 3,000 bodies (ie 2,700 inspectors conducting 120 inspections each per year plus a headquarters filled by 300 managers and administrators). That would cost circa £120 million.

Security inspections

Some commentators suggest that security inspections should be no more onerous than routine gas, electric, food or fire safety checks. Safety checks, though, have defined standards that guard against clear hazards. There are no defined standards for security checks. As we all know, the terrorist threat is endlessly adaptable. On that basis, inspections are likely to be a rather contentious issue.

It’s clear that the practical application of the Protect Duty is fraught with difficulty. That could be why the Home Office is being guarded about its progress. Perhaps the key question that needs to be asked – and answered – is: ‘Had the proposed measures been in place 20 years ago, how many lives would have been saved?’

Mike Croll MSyI is a Security Consultant 

Mike Croll delivered a presentation entitled ‘Protect Perspectives’ at the recent International Risk and Resilience Conference. The presentation was delivered at 10.30 am on Tuesday 27 September as part of the International Security Expo Conference Programme, which was held at London’s Olympia

Security Matters served as the Lead Media Partner for the show, which is run on an annual basis by the Nineteen Group and, in 2022, celebrated its 20th Anniversary