Good to go: G4S and LOCOG confident on Paralympic security
21 August 2012
After security firm G4S’s provision of security staff for the Olympic Games unravelled last month a fortnight before the event was due to start, the company and the organisers of the Paralympics are confident there will be no such hitches for this event.
Tue, 21 Aug 2012
After security firm G4S’s provision of security staff for the Olympic Games unravelled last month a fortnight before the event was due to start, the company and the organisers of the Paralympics are confident there will be no such hitches for this event.
The company had been asked to provide 10,000 staff for the Olympics, but delays in the vetting and training of staff lead to an extra 4,700 military being drafted in - albeit not all of them deployed - on top of 13,500 that had been scheduled.A spokesperson for G4S tells Recruiter: “We are confident that we have the required workforce for the Paralympic Games and we do not anticipate any shortfall in numbers of security staff.” However, the spokesperson adds that the company would not be able to give out staffing numbers and that this would be the role of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG).
However, LOCOG also tells Recruiter: “We don’t discuss exact figures.” The spokesperson for LOCOG adds: “In general for the Paralympics LOCOG is planning approximately two thirds private security contractors (G4S) and one third military, supported by our volunteers.”
A press officer for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) says there will be around 3,500 military staff “across the board, primarily [providing] security” at the Paralympics, that this figure has not changed since being set in December 2011, and that “we’re not expecting anything different”.
A Home Office spokesperson adds that “similar to the Olympics, a mix of police and military and G4S” will provide security, but that it does not want to comment on exact numbers of police and “get dragged into a running commentary”.
The Opening Ceremony for the Paralympic Games is a week tomorrow (29 August) and the Games runs to 9 September.
The Paralympics is overall smaller than the Olympics, with 2.5m tickets going on sale at around 18 venues, the exact number of venues depending on the definition of those events hosted outside of stadia such as the marathon, compared to 8.3m tickets at roughly 30 Olympic venues.
After security firm G4S’s provision of security staff for the Olympic Games unravelled last month a fortnight before the event was due to start, the company and the organisers of the Paralympics are confident there will be no such hitches for this event.
The company had been asked to provide 10,000 staff for the Olympics, but delays in the vetting and training of staff lead to an extra 4,700 military being drafted in - albeit not all of them deployed - on top of 13,500 that had been scheduled.A spokesperson for G4S tells Recruiter: “We are confident that we have the required workforce for the Paralympic Games and we do not anticipate any shortfall in numbers of security staff.” However, the spokesperson adds that the company would not be able to give out staffing numbers and that this would be the role of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG).
However, LOCOG also tells Recruiter: “We don’t discuss exact figures.” The spokesperson for LOCOG adds: “In general for the Paralympics LOCOG is planning approximately two thirds private security contractors (G4S) and one third military, supported by our volunteers.”
A press officer for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) says there will be around 3,500 military staff “across the board, primarily [providing] security” at the Paralympics, that this figure has not changed since being set in December 2011, and that “we’re not expecting anything different”.
A Home Office spokesperson adds that “similar to the Olympics, a mix of police and military and G4S” will provide security, but that it does not want to comment on exact numbers of police and “get dragged into a running commentary”.
The Opening Ceremony for the Paralympic Games is a week tomorrow (29 August) and the Games runs to 9 September.
The Paralympics is overall smaller than the Olympics, with 2.5m tickets going on sale at around 18 venues, the exact number of venues depending on the definition of those events hosted outside of stadia such as the marathon, compared to 8.3m tickets at roughly 30 Olympic venues.
