Protecting what's vital for a nation
Whether through terrorism or natural disasters, the world in the 21st century has already seen a series of severe events – 9/11, 7/7, Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, the 2007 UK floods among them – that have threatened the viability of communities and the infrastructure upon which they depend.
When a disaster strikes, we assume that it should be governments and their agencies that spring into action to provide essential services and infrastructure recovery, thereby restoring critical national infrastructure (CNI).
We also tend to pin the blame on government if there is chaos and disruption following any event we judge to have been foreseeable, avoidable or easily controlled.
And whilst governments do prepare for such events – providing in many cases an excellent response – emergency services and armed forces are often stretched to their limits.
Meanwhile, of course, major private sector operators such as G4S have rapidly deployable resources across the globe and a major vested interest in helping to prevent and minimise the effects of CNI disruptions.
What in CNI?
In the UK, the Government’s Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure (CPNI) sets out nine CNI sectors:
- communications
- emergency
- services
- energy
- finance
- food
- government
- health
- transport
- water
G4S leads the debate
With many elements of CNI now the responsibility and even property of the private sector, G4S is leading a major debate about the protection of CNI. Most recently, G4S deputy chairman, Lord Condon, added to our contribution to the debate by urging attendees at a major public–private sector Homeland Security conference, in London, to seek innovative ways to deploy private sector resources to manage the risks to national life caused by threats to CNI.
Our principal message in such debates is that protecting CNI cannot remain the preserve of the public sector and that it is time for a root and branch re-think of the way we deal with protecting the nation from threats ranging from catastrophic natural events to terrorism.
Our CNI credentials are compelling. We protect CNI – such as airports, power stations and banks – in over 100 countries and, in many of them, we also build and operate critical infrastructure such as prisons and cash centres.
This position as both CNI operator and protector puts G4S in a strong position to deliver real support to governments seeking to improve national resilience. In North America, we are already relied on to secure over 50 per cent of their commercial nuclear power stations and to protect high sensitivity sites such as the Pentagon and NASA. And, in Europe, we help protect the European Parliament and a growing list of major airports.
The way ahead
So, G4S and others have shown the very real benefits of using private companies to provide CNI-related services previously thought of as the exclusive domain of the public sector.
At G4S, though, we know that a great deal more is possible. In many circumstances, the private sector’s flexible, international resources are superior to those owned by individual governments. So G4S is busy establishing ways to drive greater private sector involvement wherever it is appropriate.
In recent weeks, for example, we’ve been setting out ideas for new legislation and regulations to create obligations on private companies to protect the CNI they bid to operate.
We also believe that, with the pressure on Government agencies to produce ever more accurate and pre-emptive intelligence, private sector organisations like G4S, with its international network, offer new avenues to provide appropriate intelligence, often much more quickly than individual nations can achieve. After all, the private sector has been using security consultancies to provide business intelligence for many years.
Making such intelligence networks available to the public sector is simply common sense.
And, in August, G4S went further still by launching a unique UK-based surge force of highly skilled ex-British service men and women, capable of deployment across the UK at short notice, to augment government and company resources in an emergency. Government can now go much further in dealing with a severe event without diverting emergency services and armed forces from their crucial day jobs.
Who pays?
Of course, private sector involvement in CNI protection begs the question of who pays.
G4S believes that in most instances the consumer should pay if the cost of delivering critical services increases through additional protection costs. This point is already well established in the aviation industry, where costs are passed on to flying customers.
Also, the principal of paying for local and national emergency and armed services in taxes provides a ready mechanism to pass on costs to the public.
The private sector is ready and capable to respond swiftly. There are many examples where the need to comply with regulated change has been quickly turned into competitive advantage.
As the debate runs on though, G4S will continue to offer its global structures and resources to national governments seeking a dramatic reduction in national vulnerability.
| In reality, there is no alternative but to utilise the private sector to protect, as well as build, critical infrastructure. Governments that choose to maintain the status quo rather than involving private companies in such work are taking unnecessary risks. |
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Protecting what's vital for a nation
