Project Servator: A decade of vigilance and community partnership

The NPSA looks back at ten years of Project Servator

If you have ever walked through a local high street or town square and spotted a rather visible police presence, then you have quite possibly witnessed Project Servator at work. The initiative was first launched 10 years ago by City of London Police and has since been adopted by 27 police forces. 

Project Servator involves police carrying out highly visible deployments made up of a range of resources. Some are obvious, such as uniformed and armed police officers, dogs and horses, vehicle checkpoints and sometimes even drones. Others are less visible, such as plain clothes officers and state-of-the-art CCTV. At the core of Project SERVATOR is unpredictability – they can be deployed anywhere and at any time.     

The purpose is to disrupt a range of criminal activities, from shoplifting to potential terror attacks. They do this by identifying and deterring hostile reconnaissance – the act of information gathering by criminals that helps them plan and prepare to commit a crime.     

Hostile reconnaissance is a vital component of the attack planning process. For terrorists and other criminals to successfully carry out their plans, they need to gather as much information about their intended target as possible. This is usually done online and then in person by visiting the place they want to target. By identifying these activities, police officers can take steps to disrupt their plans. Unlike traditional policing, officers involved in Project Servator are specially trained to spot tell-tale signs that someone may be gathering information.     

Cooperation between the public, commercial organisations and the police remains the greatest advantage in tackling all forms of criminality. Project Servator plays an important role in encouraging everyone to work together to make the UK an uninviting target for criminals and terrorists, whilst providing a reassuring presence in the community.

10th anniversary of Project Servator

Project Servator was developed, tested, and refined over a five-year period by experts at the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) in partnership with the City of London Police. NPSA’s development of the behavioural science that underpins Project Servator, paired with  the ongoing cycle of evaluation and refinement over the last decade, continues to ensure that the tactic is effective against terrorism and other threats.       

It was first introduced by the City of London Police, who adopted the collaborative community approach in early 2014, aimed at further protecting the City and reinforcing the existing ‘ring of steel’.  It was also used during the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow by Police Scotland and partners in the summer of 2014, to build on and complement the Games’ safety and security plans. Since then, many more police forces in the UK, including the British Transport Police and the Metropolitan Police, have implemented the initiative.

Network of vigilance

An important part of any Project Servator deployment is engagement with the public to inform and reassure them. Uniformed officers talk to members of the public about what the police are doing in the area and explain the key role that individuals play by being vigilant themselves and reporting any suspicious activity. Officers will hand out leaflets detailing what Project Servator is and how someone can report anything unusual.     

Officers will also talk to businesses and their staff about Project Servator and the importance of remaining vigilant and reporting anything that seems out of place. As part of their deployments, police officers will often go into business premises, such as coffee shops and retail outlets, to talk to staff and customers. Businesses have an important dual role to play — remaining vigilant and reporting anything suspicious, as well as reassuring their customers that Project Servator is there to keep them safe and encouraging them to be vigilant too.

A massive deterrent for criminals and those with harmful intent is the belief that it is not only the police that are on the lookout for them, but that everyone in the community is involved. To maximise this deterrent effect, it is important to show that businesses and the local community support this police initiative and have involved their employees, security staff, and control rooms. The aim is to create a network of vigilance that makes it difficult for criminals to operate.

Working in partnership

There are some effective actions that businesses and organisations can take to help increase the impact of Project Servator: authorising security officers to join police deployments can visibly demonstrate strong collaboration and vigilance; utilising CCTV control rooms to monitor and report suspicious activity can expand the operation’s reach; and permitting temporary posters and the use of any digital signage to display Project Servator safety messaging and allowing officer engagement with customers can help inform and reassure the public. This can also include amplifying Project Servator’s message by sharing and engaging with their content on social media can also increase local exposure and create a ripple deterrence effect and publicly supporting Project Servator through media quotes and interviews, as well as maintaining an ongoing PR and digital collaboration can create a lasting deterrent.     

Over the past 10 years, Project Servator has proved what working in partnership can achieve. It has helped the police use existing resources effectively to disrupt terrorist attack planning and involved both businesses and the public as part of a collective effort. The initiative has been successful in gathering intelligence that has assisted Counter Terrorism Units across the UK in investigating and preventing acts of terror, resulting in arrests for a multitude of offences. And it is responsible for removing illegal firearms, knives, and drugs from the streets.     

Together, we’ve got it covered.