Security Buyer talks to Dr Hugo Rosemont, ADS’s Director for the Security and Resilience sector, on security strategy, COVID-19, counter terrorism and international missions
Dr Hugo Rosemont, ADS Director of Security and Resilience, discusses in depth the growing relationship between ADS members and the UK Government on security issues. He also discusses how, increasingly, the security and resilience sector is beginning to work more closely with the defence sector. Delving into topical issues such as how the security industry has stepped up to the challenge of COVID-19, and life after the Coronavirus era, Rosemont outlines the success and evolution of the UK security industry.
How have you seen the influence of ADS in guiding the Government’s defence and security policies?
We always seek to make a constructive contribution in our mission to facilitate effective public-private cooperation on security issues, including for example though the launch of the 2019 Security Export Strategy which was published at DSEI. We were very privileged to have been working with the Government to finalise and publish that strategy. Things have moved since then, of course, but in 2019 we were in a period of intense Brexit discussions and hopefully we played a positive role to ensure that the government produced a sector-specific strategy during a very challenging period for the UK. I have not checked, but there can’t have been too many sector specific strategies published in that time and we are proud to have delivered that.
The strategy was important because the previous iteration had been published in 2014 and things have moved on – we needed to ramp up the export campaign and seek to build upon the earlier efforts. Many new capability areas of innovation and expertise were in their formative stages back in 2014, but the UK is now arguably the world leader in many of these. If one thinks of counter-drone capability, for example, this is an emerging capability where the UK is renowned for excellence. ADS members have set up a special interest group in this area, and the capabilities available were not included as part of the 2014 export strategy – why would they have been? It was important to refresh the strategy and let the international community know what the UK can offer.
We have also been working very closely with colleagues in Government to develop a ‘whole of government approach’ to UK security exports. The Department for International Trade (DIT) is the lead department in this area, but we have been promoting the need for other departments and agencies to play a greater role in support. For example, the Home Office is now playing a substantial role in many international trade missions we have delivered and have attracted many new international delegations to attend its own annual Security & Policing event that we run. It has been good to see that the partnership between DIT, Home Office and the industry has really gone from strength to strength. We have been strong advocates for that, so it is pleasing to see everybody is now on the same page.
How did you support the development of the Security Export Strategy?
We helped to convene extensive engagement in the formulation of the strategy with industry parties. It is Government’s decision on how to consult appropriately, but at our encouragement the DIT Defence and Security Organisation did that – and in a very constructive way. We brought many of our senior industry leaders into a series of DIT workshops as the strategy was being developed.
A key ingredient for success was the partnership approach that was cemented. At the 2019 iteration of Security & Policing, the Chairman of our industry alliance the UK Security and Resilience Industry Suppliers’ Community (RISC), Sir Kevin Tebbit, signed a collaborative agreement with the Government, with the then Secretary of State for International Trade, the Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP, to establish the principles and modus operandi for how we would work together.
I think this agreement set an excellent tone for the engagement as we headed into finalising the strategy which was then published in September 2019. It got the top level buy in that was needed to harness all the different and disaggregated parts of Government and industry. So, a real alliance was formed, and I think DIT and RISC can take some credit in bringing that together. We now all accept, of course, that the key is actually around how we implement this strategy collectively, whether at the Dubai trade mission earlier this year, or at Milipol in Paris last November. There is fantastic Government support for these UK missions across the different departments.
How has that new leadership come about?
I think there are multiple factors. I think that Government began to see that the global security market was growing substantially. For example, when you look at some of the subsectors of the security market – think cyber security or counter drone – we are seeing extremely rapid growth and there is growing understanding and realisation that the UK has excellent capability, so there is a market opportunity to seize. With Brexit in the background and the Government’s policy orientation towards ‘Global Britain’, we have also been part of that conversation. But I think this has more to do with having confidence around the UK’s excellence in security, counter terrorism and areas like cyber – and understanding this is a sector in which people look to the UK. We are currently the fourth leading exporter in the security sector, which for a country for our size, is impressive. But we can still do better and there are ambitious plans to do more.
Our counter-terrorism strategy, known as CONTEST, is respected worldwide and is very clear about the contributions to it from the private sector. Similarly, in cyber security the country has an excellent reputation arising from Bletchley Park and the excellence of our intelligence agency GCHQ. We also have the reputation of New Scotland Yard and the British ‘Bobby on the Beat’. It might sound like a bit of a cliché, but these brands are respected internationally, and the police would be amongst the first to say the importance that they place on technology and UK capability.
Do you think security represents ‘soft power’ more than ‘hard power’, like defence?
You are alluding to the distinct character of the security and resilience sector which I certainly recognise. What I would say is that purchasers in our sector span both the public and private sectors which is a significant difference to the defence market. For example, the international banking community has enormous security requirements in both cyber but also in physical protective measures. That is obviously not Government procurement. Maybe Government influences standards in certain countries, but I think what is welcome is that the government now sees itself as a key player in promoting UK security capabilities internationally.
The security sector supports UK national security and economic interests overseas – whether that is UK companies generating economic growth by selling their solutions, or protecting UK citizens travelling and living overseas, for example in crowded places. I think that you will see departments like the Home Office getting much more interested in both these dimensions, at the request of senior Ministers who see the world this way. They understand the need for all departments to play a role in prosperity and clearly the Home Office has the security and resilience sector under its auspices, who supports it day in day out. Have we been fully leveraging this in our export campaigns? Probably not as much as we should have done. I think that it is good that parts of the Home Office are now embracing the opportunity.
Another strength of the UK security industry is that it is a very diverse sector and we have many world leading SME’s, especially in areas of covert technologies, counter drone, countering explosive ordnance, CBRN, cyber and major event security.
I think the 2019 UK Security Export Strategy does a good job of informing all interested parties about the strengths of the UK security and resilience sector’s world-leading capabilities. In essence, we have a full spectrum of capabilities. There are not many areas where the UK is dependent on overseas suppliers – in fact, the UK security and resilience sector has a full offering in multiple areas. So, that is something to be very proud of and promote.
So, the industry and partnership is growing organically?
Yes, although we can only control so much of this in an extremely disaggregated sector landscape. However, we do see the potential and opportunity for growing Government-to-Government (G2G) engagement in the security sector. Now this will almost certainly look different from classic G2Gs we are familiar with in the defence market, although in some areas it might look very similar.
So, if one sees how governments increasingly designing major border security programmes, for example, that tends to be with the civil security authorities within the individual country. Whether or not any government would contract directly with Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) in the security sector remains to be seen. But there is definitely a role for Government in terms of helping to facilitate dialogue with those bilateral partners and then to bring to the fore UK industrial capabilities into that discussion. By doing so, that helps strengthen bilateral links as well, so I think that this is an area of the Security Export Strategy where there is a very encouraging discussion.
In 2019, our priority was to launch a strategy which recognised that the sector had changed and that a whole of government approach was needed. The 2014 strategy was good but was overly ambitious in terms of the realistic number of G2G contracts that could have been delivered.
You have held several different roles in the security sector, could you tell us more about them?
I was the Security Executive – in effect the Executive Officer for the Head of Security for the London 2012 Olympic Bid. We as the UK have excellent doctrine, management and capability on major event security that can assist international partners. We can help them understand how the UK Government structured the approach to securing London 2012 and other major events, as well as analyse the security risks to the Games and how to deploy resources.
Major event security is a good example, with Paris 2024 on the horizon, of how the UK Government could contribute directly to security planning in France, with industry in close support. We as the UK security industry are knocking at the door and fully accept that we are not going to be party to all the conversations and all the discussions, but equally our sector should be part of the mission, and that is exactly what we did in February with a Public Security Exhibition (PSE) we organised at the British Embassy in Paris. At that event, there were G2G discussions on Paris 2024 with London authorities as well as, in the margins, a tabletop exhibition with 34 companies, many of whom supplied directly to London 2012 or to the UK authorities at the time of London 2012. This is what I mean by driving more effective G2G engagement in the security sector.
G2G for the security industry can therefore look a bit different from the defence sector but that does not mean that there is not a clear role for Government. It will not be possible to pursue this in every country, or on every programme – that’s not realistic so we are going to have to do our homework to identify which areas there are of strategic interest for the UK security posture and where industry can play a clear role in support of that.
In addition to Tracy Buckingham, Head of Security and Cyber Security Exports at DIT, appointing more dedicated security sector staff over the past six months, I am delighted to say that we also put a call out for industry ‘sector specialists’ to support the DIT team. These are not paid roles but an excellent opportunity to deliver some useful joint work on framing areas of capability where the UK has particular strengths. We are pleased that we have the first two industry sector specialists appointed. I think industry needs to play its part as well to express itself back into Government.
How is ADS helping with COVID-19?
Helping members address the impact of C-19 is the major focus of our current activity. You have seen that ADS has established a COVID-19 hub – that is the principal portal for information that is being managed centrally for the organisation. All teams have a role to play and we have put in place internal mechanisms to make sure that we are drawing all the relevant information from the different areas and sectors that can be promulgated fully. For example, the security team I lead has been inputting into that process for wider dissemination to our members the guidance that the National Cyber Security Centre has published to help companies manage the increase in home working and what it means for cyber security.
The other thing that we have been doing centrally is communicating with members and making sure that they are being supported. To achieve this, we introduced a weekly webinar with our Chief Executive, Paul Everitt. It is important that the members have access to ADS’s senior management, as well as facilitate the two-way flow of information on how companies are faring and understanding the support they might need.
Those two resources seem to have been well received. The other two areas I would flag are how our member companies are supporting the Government’s ‘Ventilator challenge’; one of the key focal points of the Government and our membership as well as the wider manufacturing industry sector have really rallied to the call. Rapid manufacturing pivots of this nature are never easy, but the UK has developed an excellent response, which has included leading companies including Smiths, Airbus and Babcock. We have got the design; we have got the manufacturing base in the UK. It has not been without its challenges, but I believe that industry has stepped up.
Within ADS we also have CBRN UK group, a specialist interest group of those operating in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear protection, covering all aspects of capability including protective clothing all the way through to decontamination. So, this is clearly a group that has many stakes in the current crisis. It is very clear to me that, for this special interest group, the level of engagement has ramped up significantly in recent weeks.
They have been engaged in some of the most unexpected projects. For example, the defence and security accelerator (DASA) released a call for ideas and innovation and around how to clean ambulances more quickly. What they have said publicly is that, currently, following an individual with suspected Covid-19 having been transported to a hospital, the average time needed to clean and decontaminate the ambulance is approximately 45-minutes. The authorities are trying to drive that down in a similar way to how we are driving up the production of ventilators.
With only two days’ notice, I am happy to say that we convened a webinar for that group on the subject with DASA. Our hope now is that the group and community can provide the government with some ideas in very quick turnaround, very much seeing our role at ADS that of a facilitator. We are also letting our other senior contacts in the Government security machinery know that we are there for them if they have any other emerging requirements. We are finding that a lot of people are knocking on the door of CBRN UK at the moment and it is a great sub-sector of the wider UK security industry.
So, in short, there is the support and communication that we provide to our members relating to how they implement their own resilience and business continuity arrangements and access Government support at this difficult time. But then there is how we dock with the government and others with the capability requirements as they emerge. It would not surprise me if there were other urgent calls moving forward but, for now, we try and do what we can to gain support and gain visibility and help to coordinate the industry response.
Where do you see the next security issue flowing from after Brexit and Covid-19?
We have seen time and again following crises of this nature, the need to reform the UK’s central emergency planning structures and response.
In the recent past, we have seen how major flooding, foot and mouth, the BSE crisis, blockages such as the petrol crisis has led to the reform of UK resilience structures to deal with and the next crisis. I do believe that a review of the UK’s resilience programme and a deeper dive into how industry can support those arrangements is going to be held in the future.
Two other priority areas are the protection of crowded places and the emergence of the Government’s planned ‘PROTECT duty’ that is coming down the track. Following the 2017 terrorist attacks, the Government signalled its intention to regulate security within the events space as well as other crowded spaces. The intention is to put in an obligation to conduct basic venue security, such as the need to complete a risk assessment, on a statutory basis. That is a significant development and who know which other elements will now be addressed, even if its origins are principally in counter-terrorism.
The second area is digital; and specifically, the Government’s intention to regulate social media companies to remove harmful content from online platforms. In addition to addressing harmful content on the platform itself, another key priority is also to disrupt, if not eliminate, the use of those networks as communication tools by hostile actors. I would highlight those two areas because the Government has signalled its plan to regulate in areas where it will be the private sector that has to implement the security measures. For ADS’s part, we believe our members can support the effort and we are committed to helping ensure that our industry’s investment is correct for purpose. I think that is quite important beyond COVID-19.
The ventilator challenge shows the great deal of pride individual companies have had in stepping up to respond to COVID-19. That is absolutely the spirit we need. We have seen companies step up historically around major conflicts, but this feels different. Public health emergencies present a different type of risk, but we see how industry can play a major role in mitigating the impact. Our sector’s contribution to tackling COVID-19 is something that the UK can be very proud of.
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