Ashford International - Private Security.

[bramling]

Maybe because LU seem to like their staff to be jacks of all trades and masters of none, hence their plan to cut ticket office staff? NR prefer to let their operational staff be operational and their security staff to deal with security.
As to why they are only at few national rail stations, it's probably because smaller stations can cope with the workload easily enough.

In my experience, agency staff are used when there is a staff shortage, possibly due to long-term sickness or a number of vacancies coming up at one time.
I can't speak for LU, but an NR security CSA will start at about £19.5k plus London Weighting, if applicable.

I don't have the exact figure to hand, however the entry CSA salary on LU is around 30k. I would also expect a better package of benefits such as final-salary pension, free travel, more annual leave, etc. The highest grade of Station Supervisor is I believe around 50k.

I can't see what the blue hi-vi staff actually specialise in, apart from walking round the premises, which LU staff do as part of their wide role. The difference is that on LU station staff can do so much more, and in so doing have a much greater knowledge of their workplace.

As for the likes of G4S, the Northern contract was hardly short-term. Putting a security label on someone's back doesn't necessarily help if things turn nasty - in my experience it can make things worse. When there were security staff at a local station on Saturday nights, I recall watching many situations where their influence worsened, or even created, a situation. Police officers are far better trained in diffusing situations, and have the necessary law enforcement powers to support their role.

As I've implied earlier, I cannot think of many real-life situations on the railway where a security presence has positively contributed to a situation. As a passenger I've generally found security staff to be rude and confrontational, and lacking in knowledge. Where I would have expected them to intervene, for example feet on seats, groups of drunks vandalising trains, or smoking in places where prohibited, the lack of intervention in the form of a blind eye has been quite noticeable. It follows that from a staff perspective my experience has been that they're either superfluous or worse something I'd rather hadn't pitched up at a given time. These are my experience, perhaps others have had more positive encounters.

As I say, it's clear the real reason for their role on the railway is cost. The railway is not Tesco's, it's a complex and specialist environment which requires specialist training and knowledge. Might be cheaper in the short term to hire in G4S, but when it comes to it if I were in charge of a station, I know what type of staff I'd prefer to have on the team, and it is the LU model, and If I had a problem I'd rather the BTP turned up than a security contractor.

 

[Starmill]

York station, around 23:00 on a Saturday night, a bit rowdy, fairly busy rush for last trains. Final connection to destination missed due to late inbound train, requiring taxi authorisation. Some BTP, loads of security contractors. The latter were entirely unable to help, most said they thought all the station staff had gone home (although one did offer to send them our way if he spotted one!). Tentative approach of BPT they thought the security people were the station staff. Ticket office closed, no help points (working ones anyway) EC Customer Relations closed.

Oh dear.