IAASF: Effective use of personnel in protecting cultural venues

Effective use of personnel in protecting cultural venues
Andy Davis, Chair IAASF

Andy’s key message was that security is everyone’s responsibility.

 

When designing a security programme Andy suggested that you may wish to consider; 

•  What you want it to look like 
• Involvement of ALL departments – you will need to understand everyone’s needs to resolve all risks and threats to your cultural venue, other departments security priorities may be different to your own 
• Physical, technical and operational possibilities

Andy continued by discussing how you must create fundamentals, what assets at your venue need protecting? Thinking not only about the risk but also vulnerability, if known about there is a possibility it can be managed. The talk continued onto asset identification, after all you need to know what your assets are in order to protect them. To name but a few assets; the building, paintings/objects, people/staff, computers, visitors, infrastructure, information (technology and data), a venues reputation. It is essential that you know what your cultural venues assets are so that you can put a plan together to protect which can then give you direction. 

 

Sharing knowledge is essential so Andy emphasised how once you have a policy in place, make sure it is shared with everyone in your organisation. You should also think about training opportunities and education for staff which will then enable them to identify suspicious and normal activity.

 

Andy left us thinking about two acronyms he used; TLC (Think like a criminal) and TLT (Think like a terrorist). In order to have a policy you must first think like a criminal or a terrorist to discover what threats and risks exist in your cultural venue. 

Ellie Saggers, Assistant Registrar, The Fitzwilliam Museum