Roundtable: Protect Duty Legislation for Publicly Accessible Spaces

This roundtable will consider the Government Protect Duty and how legislation might be used to enhance the protection of publicly accessible locations across the UK from terrorist attacks and ensure organisational preparedness.

We will hear from Gemma Carling, Regional Counter Terrorism Security Advisor Supervisor for Counter Terrorism Policing North East (CTPNE) who will give us an overview of the Protect Duty and why it is needed, before we have a roundtable discussion on how the Protect Duty should work and be applied to businesses, which will feed into the Chamber consultation response. The discussion will consider:

• Who/where the legislation should apply to?
• What should the requirements be?
• How should compliance work?
• How should government best work with and support partners?

With some exceptions, right now there is no legislative requirement to consider or implement security measures at publicly accessible locations. However, there are many reasonable and appropriate measures which can be – and often already are – undertaken by organisations who operate at such locations. These include:

• Having security plans and procedures to react and respond to different threats which are understood by all staff and regularly exercised;
• Having simple and freely available training and awareness courses in place as part of new staff and refresher training programmes; and
• Employing simple security measures (such as door locks, roller shutters) for crime prevention and anti-social behaviour, which may also be used in response to other security threats

If you have any queries on this event, please contact amber.burney@neechamber.co.uk or call 03003036322.

Nearly every Chamber event is open to members only. If you would like to speak to the Chamber about membership, please contact alex.cannings@neechamber.co.uk