Recognising those standing up against terrorism in the UK

Emergency Services Award
The work that the emergency services do to keep our nation safe often goes unrecognised. It is for that reason that categories like the Emergency Services Award are presented, acknowledging how the police, fire and ambulance services have implemented and tested a strategy to cope with terrorist attack. Ross McKibbin, the Metropolitan Police officer in overall command of the emergency services’ response on the night of the London Bridge attacks, rightfully told the inquest into the London Bridge terrorist attack that emergency services performed exceptionally in what was ‘a war zone on the streets of London’.

Despite the delay in London Ambulance staff attending to some of the most seriously injured coming under scrutiny during the inquest, the work that was achieved, and the speed in which it was carried out, is remarkable, especially give the array of confused information from hundreds of unverified reports. London has unfortunately fallen victim to numerous terrorist attacks in the last few years, and while the police have successfully prevented many, on the occasions that assailants have caused harm, London Ambulance Service have responded and performed exceptionally.

When reacting to a terrorist threat collaboration is crucial, especially among the blue light services. West Midlands Police, together with partner emergency services, have gone above and beyond in ensuring that staff are given invaluable training and experience, should an event hit the region. One such training session was held in May 2019 and saw an exercise take place at a number of locations across the West Midlands including the empty Woodlands School in Coventry, a residential street in Birmingham, abandoned farm complex in Warwickshire and ended at Wolverhampton Racecourse.

The exercise highlighted the strong working relationships between West Midlands Police, West Midlands Fire Service, West Midlands Ambulance Service and wider Counter Terrorism Policing agencies.

A similar-style event was held in the north east, where nursing students from Northumbria University took part in a staged firearms training event designed to give doctors and paramedics a taste of working in a mass casualty terrorist incident. Great North Air Ambulance Service and Northumbria Police ran the simulated learning experience, which was being run for clinicians from around the country as part of an annual training course. In total, six paramedics and six doctors took part in the live training event, featuring dozens of casualties displaying signs of blast and gunshot injuries.

Perimeter Security Award
This category recognises an organisation, public or private, which has designed and/or installed physical security measures to protect buildings and individuals from terrorist attack. Originally launched in July 2017, the Home Office’s Improving Crowd Resilience competition forms part of the government’s efforts to do more with the private sector to encourage them to help tackle the security challenges facing the UK. As a result of that competition, a new app, called The Krowd, was launched early last year to keep people safe in crowded places. Created by KrowdThink, the app allows people in crowded places to speak directly with on-site security teams, allowing visitors to report suspicious activity in real-time using their phones. Images are then sent instantly from the crowd and can assist the security team to assess a threat.

The second shortlisted organisation is Thames Water, who have heavily invested in two perimeter protection contracts for the perimeter protection of seven of its sites, with the second contract awarded for physical security around 11km of perimeter for four of the seven sites. Thames Water manages more than 4,500 sites that require security to protect the water supply to over 14 million people. The work, awarded to Zaun, forms part of the AMP6 programme to bring Thames Water’s estate up to Defra standards and fully prepare for any security eventuality.

Making up the three-strong shortlist is Manchester City Council, who have recently announced that it will act on proposals that will enshrine the principles of Martyn’s Law into future regulations to ensure the safety of all Manchester residents. A terrorist bomb attack at the Manchester Arena on 22 May 2017 claimed the lives of 22 people, and seriously injured dozens more. Martyn Hett was one of those who died. Since his death, Martyn’s mother Figen Murray has campaigned to have the government introduce legislation to improve security at all public venues, calling it ‘Martyn’s Law’.

Manchester City Council has now said that it will review the way in which it licences venues in order to ensure high safety standards are in place across the whole of the city. Initially this will have to be voluntary changes made by the owners of licensed premises. However, given the significance of the terror attack on Manchester, and the depth of feeling in the wake of the attack, the authority says that it hopes that the practices which underlie Martyn’s Law would be taken up with enthusiasm.

Counter Terrorism Education Project Award
Merging two previous awards, the Counter Terrorism Project Award and the Education Project Award, this award will recognise a governmental organisation or public/private partnership which has developed and implemented an effective counter terrorism strategy or awareness campaign. The ACT Awareness eLearning package recently scooped the top prize at a prestigious European business resilience awards event, and has also successfully made our shortlist here. Counter Terrorism Policing announced last year that the counter terrorism training course is being made available to the public for the first time so that anyone who wants to become a CT Citizen so they can learn how to spot the signs of suspicious behaviour and understand what to do in the event of a major incident. The online learning, made up of seven modules that take a few minutes each to complete, is available free of charge to anyone who wants to take part.

The PSHE Association is also being recognised as a potential winner in this category for its counter extremism training programme. Aimed at providing teachers with the confidence and skills to address key extremism-related topics in the classroom to bring into PSHE lessons, the programme also helps equip pupils with better awareness and understanding of extremist behaviour. A bespoke evaluation survey, carried out by the Home Office’s Building a Stronger Britain Together programme, found that the training and supporting resources led to significantly increased levels of confidence and improved skills in covering extremism-related topics in the classroom among teacher participants.