What should you do when you have completed your survey? You may be the world’s greatest administrator, or you may get confused if you have more than one task to perform. This chapter suggests a simple approach to selecting, documenting and implementing your chosen countermeasures.

Already Started

If you took my advice, you have probably already started responding to and resolving any problems that you identified during your survey. You must now begin a formal process that will allow you to manage and resolve the problems you found and listed by implementing the selected countermeasures.

Identifying security issues

During the survey you may have simply listed the security problems you encountered, or you may have written pages of notes. Somewhere you should also have listed possible countermeasures associated with each problem.

Some countermeasures were easy and simple to do, so you have already introduced them. For example, you may already have cut back overgrown bushes and be shutting that window when you leave, so Tiddles the cat will have to wait outside until you come home.

Other countermeasures are awaiting your attention, but first you must decide what to implement and how to do it.

List Problems and Countermeasures

You should start by looking back through the notes and lists you have written and draw up a tidy list of all vulnerabilities, risks and threats that you have identified. For simplicity I will call them ‘problems’.

Against each problem, you should list any known or potential countermeasures that you have identified. At this stage, you may have identified a problem for which you cannot identify a workable countermeasure. That is acceptable; simply list the problem with no proposed countermeasure.

When you have finished, you will at least have documented all of the problems that you identified, so you will not lose track of them.

The problems you identify may be quite lengthy, for example ‘Front door swells up and sticks in winter, but dries out and shrinks in summer making the front door loose and insecure’. For that reason you should assign a number and key word to each problem for ease of reference. See the example below.

Identify and select countermeasures

Against some problems you will have listed several possible countermeasures, while against others there may be only one, or even no proposed countermeasures. You should now invest some time in researching those countermeasures, so that you can select, nominate and list those countermeasures that you are going to implement. You may need to:

• Seek expert advice from a tradesperson – what locks would be best suited for use on a patio or garage door?
• Investigate the need for planning permission from the local authority to erect a wall or high fence.
• Seek permission for structural changes from your landlord.
• Look into the availability and cost of new fixtures and fitting.
• Investigate the availability, time, skills, tools and costs involved with implementing any particular countermeasure.
• Ask for advice from the local police crime prevention officer, who may be able to suggest countermeasures where you have been unable to identify any.

All of the above actions should help you to review the problems and the effort needed to implement a potential countermeasure. That should then allow you to compare them, and to select the countermeasure that you want to introduce to improve your security.

Your final objective is to draw up a list of all identified problems and the countermeasures you propose to introduce to overcome those problems.

Establish countermeasure priority

When you have finished listing the countermeasures you plan to introduce, you should assign priorities to them. This will be easier using a computer, because you will be able easily to change the order by cutting and pasting. If you don’t have a computer available you may want to do it using sticky notes. As some people don’t have a computer available I will assume you are using sticky notes, which you will stick to flip chart pages (or the wall if you have to) to sort and organise your countermeasures.

I suggest that you assign your problems and countermeasures under four headings:

• (I) Immediate
• (S) Soon
• (I & W) If and when possible
• (NS) Non-security.

You should write the reference number and key word of each problem and the countermeasures on a new sticky note and add it to the appropriate list. Thus you might write ‘SRI/1 Porch – fit porch light’ and on another note ‘SRI/1 Porch – Fit door viewer’. Using the reference number and key word makes the task manageable, and what is written on the sticky note is enough to remind you what it is actually about.

Your perception of the priority, time required, cost, skills, impact and benefit will eventually allow you to produce a final countermeasure priority list. Remember that the priority rating will be a combination of factors. The most important of these are:

• The threat or risk that the countermeasure will remove or protect against. For example, a rotten front door to which you have lost two keys that had an address tag on them is a major concern. The threat and risk is that the door is no longer secure at all.
• The time required to implement the countermeasure. For example, it will take about half a day to replace the front door. John the carpenter is good and reliable so it will be half a day well spent.
• The cost of implementing the countermeasure. Though a total cost of £418 is quite expensive, a secure front door is so fundamental to the security of the house that it must be done as soon as possible.
• Skills needed to implement the countermeasure. For example, a skilled carpenter is needed to fit the door. I do not have the skills so I have employ John to do the job.
• Impact on the family and house of implementing the countermeasure. For example, having no front door for half a day while it is replaced. It is summer and I can work at home that day so the impact is minimal.
• The overall benefits that will be gained by implementing the countermeasure. For example, total security from a professionally installed door and frame, with new locks, a door viewer and hinge bolts. This door will be totally secure, and will have the benefits of a secure letterbox, mail basket, internal flap and built in letterbox draught excluder.
• You should also remember that increased security could give financial benefits as well, because insurance companies may reduce insurance premiums when double-glazing and multi-point locking external doors are fitted.

If you have too many countermeasures to easily cope with, or the sorting process causes you any difficulty, do the sorting in stages. For example, take each item and sort them into different piles (I) Immediate, (S) Soon, (I&W) If & When possible, and (NS) Non-Security. Then carefully review and sort each problem in each pile separately.

• Immediate. This list will contain all actions that you consider should be completed urgently. This could include such actions as replacing the faulty front door lock, which is clearly an urgent item, but this list might include apparently ‘non-urgent’ items. For example, you may have realised that the bushes at the front of the house have grown too high and you have listed a countermeasure to cut them back. That is hardly an ‘urgent’ countermeasure, but because you can easily cut back the bushes, it will only take half an hour and cost nothing, it can be done in the next few days when you have half an hour to spare, so it appears on the immediate list.
• Soon. This list contains all of the actions that you consider should be completed soon, but are not classified as immediate. For example, you may want to replace the locks and bolts on the garage door. Due to the cost, you decide not to do that until next month (when you are due to get a new car and a ride-on mower, which will both be kept in the garage).
• If and when possible. This classification contains the actions that deliver the ‘nice to have’ countermeasures. For example, a state of the art, monitored burglar alarm system would be nice to have. It would increase household security immeasurably, but at a price of £3,000 with a £200 a year monitoring fee, due to our financial circumstances it will have to wait on the ‘if and when possible’ list.
• Non-security. This list contains countermeasures that are not directly related to security, but which you would be foolish to ignore. For example, you may have spotted a loose slate when performing the perimeter survey, or noticed that the header tank in the loft that feeds the central heating system appears to be corroded. These defects, risks and problems cannot be ignored. You must take steps to address them, and the non-security list is the mechanism through which you manage them. Such things as water pipes not being lagged, or the absence of a smoke detector on the upstairs landings will also be added to this list. Don’t forget these issues; even though they are not strictly security issues, you must address them.

Example prioritisation

When you have completed the listing process, you have to sort the counter-measures into priority order. The process is straightforward, though not necessarily simple. You will have to consider all factors to define a priority order. To illustrate the process and the sort of factors you will have to consider in assigning priorities, assume we have been presented with an unusually manageable list of four countermeasures. They were simply listed in the order we identified them; as yet they are in no particular order.

• Cut down shrubs in front garden.
• Replace broken front door lock.
• Renew old front door.
• Ensure house always locked when we leave.

I have prioritised these four actions as shown below. Beside each action is an explanation of my thought process, describing why I decided to rank the actions the way I did.

Given your skills, abilities and wealth, you might have prioritised the example actions listed above in a different order. That is perfectly acceptable, because the whole point of this method and process is to tailor the reviews, actions and countermeasures to your personal circumstances.

For example, you might have put replacing the front door first, because in your case you are a carpenter, the front door is badly rotted and the frame is coming away from the wall. A new lock under those circumstances would have been a waste of time!

Revisit and revise the priorities

Though you arrive at a prioritisation list, that may not reflect the order in which countermeasures are completed. For example, putting a top and bottom bolt in the inside of the tool shed double doors (where the bolts will secure the double door and make them stronger) may be the lowest priority countermeasure we have on our list. Replacing the front door might be the highest priority item on that same list. However, circumstances may dictate the order in which they are completed. Perhaps we have already started to tackle the highest priority countermeasures – we ordered a new UPVC steel framed front door on the day we completed our survey. Unfortunately, there is a four-week delay in delivering and installing that new, high priority, secure, weatherproof, steel framed, UPVC front door.

In the meantime we can carry on tackling the other, possibly lower priority countermeasures on the list, because we have the time and or skills to do so. Perhaps we had an hour spare last Sunday so we fitted the new bolts on the shed door and finished that ‘low priority’ countermeasure two and a half weeks before the high priority new front door is installed.

Just as long as you attempt to address the items in priority order, resolving the worst risks and issues as soon as you can, the order in which they are completed doesn’t really matter. But where there is a choice of completing a low priority or a high priority action today, always aim to deliver the high priority countermeasure.

Prioritisation considerations

There are many factors that could affect your decision as to how to prioritise items. A few examples are given below, with a brief explanation.

There will undoubtedly be other pressures and restrictions that are unique to you! For example, you may be disabled and can only do things that are possible in a wheelchair, or you may live on an island and some problems can only be addressed at low tide! You will have to make your best efforts to resolve issues and outstanding actions when you can.

You should also remember that some countermeasures have been listed on the ‘if and when possible’ list. For example, replacing the footpath and drive with gravel doesn’t need to be done immediately. Having had a quote of £1,675 to do the job it is probably not even justifiable, but if in two or five years’ time the drive needs resurfacing perhaps you can resurrect this action and take the gravel option for your new drive, with security in mind.

The main point to remember is, since you took the time to identify security issues relating to your house, you must make any changes you can justify and achieve, but don’t lose sight of outstanding issues. Keep them in mind, regularly review them and resolve any outstanding issues to deliver selected counter-measures when you can.

When you define the actions necessary to implement a countermeasure, they may seem very simple. For example, getting everyone to agree to make sure the house is secure when they go out costs nothing. It only needs agreement from everyone so it could take just a few minutes to complete. It needs no extra skills or equipment so that should be marked ‘Immediate priority’ and be assigned to the immediate list.

However, perhaps two members of the family are on a hiking holiday somewhere in Europe so it cannot be done immediately. There isn’t any way of contacting the hikers to discuss the problem and seek agreement, so this counter-measure may be listed as ‘soon’, knowing it can easily be completed when the family gets together in two months’ time!

There may still be little things that you can do. For example, get everyone who is living in the house to agree always to lock the door, and to stop and check to see if the door is locked before they leave. A little extra security could be gained by putting a sign inside each door, saying something like ‘Check Door Is Locked’.

Getting somebody to lag the pipes in the loft and check that crusty looking stopcock will be on the (NS) ‘non-security’ list, as would the installation of smoke detectors.

Mark the four categories on the top of four flip chart pages: (I) Immediate, (S) Soon, (I & W) If & When possible, and (NS) Non-Security. With the headed pages set up, work through your actions, write each of them on a new sticky note and stick it to the appropriate flip chart page.

Action Lists

When you have listed the countermeasures you propose to implement, you may want to compile an action list for each countermeasure. The action list is simply a list of the tasks you have to complete to implement the stated countermeasure. Tasks are usually listed in the order they need to be completed to deliver the countermeasure. If the countermeasure is to fit a new bulb in the porch light, you won’t need to bother to create an action list, but where the countermeasure is more complicated an action list will be a huge help.

Example action list

Taking as an example the countermeasure of ‘standardise house identification in our street’, you have to look at the tasks and actions that you will need to complete in order to standardise house identification in your street.

The action list will show each of the steps needed to do that, in the order in which they have to be completed. When finished, the action list becomes a plan, check list and work schedule that will help you to introduce that countermeasure.

A possible action list of the steps and tasks needed to introduce standardised house identification in your street might be:

• 1.Research the availability, style, size, durability, design and cost of house name signs.
• 2.Research the methods of attaching, mounting and positioning house name signs for optimum visibility.
• 3.Investigate the possibility of discounts if everyone in the street buys a sign from the same company.
• 4.Check to make sure that the most appropriate sign and mounting system will work on every property in the road.
• 5.Discuss the proposal with fire, police and ambulance personnel and record their support and comments.
• 6.Find a local handyman who could install all of the signs if required to do so, and list the price he will charge. Negotiate a discount for multiple signs/houses.
• 7.Make a presentation to remind the residents’ committee of the risks and dangers that could be associated with emergency services staff being unable to find any given house. Describe the problems your friend had in finding your house when you undertook a test. Stress the difficulty of finding one house in the dark and rain, and explain how that could affect the security and health of everyone in the street.
• 8.Make a presentation of your research into signs. Present a few samples. Present the cost savings residents will make by taking advantage of the discounts you have negotiated. Describe the response of representatives of the emergency services to the standardised sign initiative.
• 9.Request that residents association members should vote on the initiative.
• 10.If accepted, be ready with a form for all members to write in their house name and or number, for a centralised bulk order. Take the money from members as they fill in the form so that the initiative can be completed without further delay.
• 11.Take delivery of the new signs and mounting brackets, etc.
• 12.Arrange with the handyman to fit all of the signs.

When all of those steps have been successfully completed, the countermeasure is in place. As with this example action list, in some cases the necessary steps and actions could take some weeks to complete.

Action list considerations

The action list will also help you to understand the effort, cost and time required to implement your countermeasures. Compiling the action list allows you to break down tasks required to manageable and understandable proportions.

For each task you can look at the time, cost, skills required and impact of the task. Noting them against the actions, you can soon define total cost, time required for delivery, specialist skills required and any impacts and knock-on effects.

Using the above example the table below indicates the results you may get from this exercise.

In this case, the table shows us that there is almost no cost involved in preparing to implement this countermeasure. There will be costs in buying the signs and having them erected, but there should be a group discount on that.

The time required seems rather long! It adds up to a total of 37 days, 2 hours and 25 minutes. But there are several factors that you have to remember in this instance.

• Because the long-term goal is to make each house in the street easily identifiable at any time, a lead-time of a month or so may be quite acceptable.
• Most of the time allocated is for research into the availability of signs, talking to the emergency services to prove that the exercise will be worthwhile, etc. Remember this is a background task for one resident, and we had to build in enough time for enquiries to be made and for quotes to come back through the post.
• Lastly, we have to look at the sequence:
  • Action 1 is to research availability and cost of signs.
  • Action 2 is to research method of erecting those signs. The company providing the signs probably also provides posts and fixings, and will advise on that at the same time, depending on the type of signs selected. That means that actions 1 and 2 can possibly be run in parallel.
  • Action 3 is to research possible discounts, which means we may as well add that enquiry when we first talk to the sign companies we approach. Tell them that there are 35 houses in our road, and ask what discounts they will offer if each household buys a sign and fixings. This means that to a large extent action 3 can run in parallel with actions 1 and 2.
  • Action 4 is to check to see that the same mounting system will work on each house in the street. That is listed to take a day, and we should be able to do that quite early in the process. By looking at the signs available, we can see and list the common fixing methods. While we are waiting for the formal quotes from the sign companies we can check the houses in the street to make sure that the fixing methods will work on all properties. That means that this action could be completed before actions 1, 2, and 3 are completed so they will all run in parallel.
  • Action 5 is to discuss the initiative with the emergency services. After a few days, we should have a good idea of the type of sign and fixing method, so we can approach the emergency services and talk to them about what we are planning. Anything that helps them to find properties will be welcomed, and in the case above, they are so pleased with the initiative that they have said they are going to write about it in their newsletters and suggest that other communities follow our example!
  • Actions 7, 8, 9 and 10 take only a short time at the next residents’ association meeting.
  • Action 11 takes one day because the company offers next day delivery!
  • That means that although the total time added up to 37 days 2 hours and 25 minutes, in reality with a bit of luck we can actually probably introduce this countermeasure and the handyman can start putting the new signs up within a couple of weeks!

No special skills are required, and the only impact is that if the residents vote yes, the signs will have to be ordered and the workman contracted to erect them.

The details for each action could include:

• Time – how long (measured in hours) it will take to introduce the counter-measure.
• Cost – how much it will cost to introduce the countermeasure, including all costs, such as buying materials, renting tools and equipment or paying a professional to do it.
• Skills – are any special skills required for you to introduce a given counter-measure? For example, you may need an electrician.
• Impacts – you must decide what impacts, if any, the new countermeasure will have on your house, family or lifestyle. For example, will you have to move out while electricians lift floorboards to rewire the house and install a combination burglar alarm and fire alarm system?

Additional sample action lists are given below.

Accidents at Home

In the first chapter we defined security as the application of methods and procedures that are used to make our lifestyle secure against any vulnerabilities, threats and risks, where by applying security appropriately, we will achieve safety!

Accidents in the home are therefore a threat to our safety and security, in its broadest sense. We will take a brief look at accident prevention in the home. Statistics show that a majority of injuries are caused by accidents inside the home and those accidents are responsible for a lot of domestic injuries and fatalities.

The causes and effects of the accidents could probably be listed under a few headings:

• Falls/slips/trips. These include stairs, loose carpet, trailing shoelaces, toys (left on stairs and steps), trailing wires, loose floorboards, using inappropriate items to climb to reach high objects (climbing onto a stool instead of using a ladder), small dogs (running under the feet of an elderly person) and wet floors, oil spillage, etc.
• Burns/scalds. These include spills or misuse of boiling water, food (hot drinks and soup), cooking oil, household chemicals (getting bleach and other caustic materials onto the hands), hot utensils (burns from cooking dishes), etc.
• Poisoning. This includes gas (faulty gas appliances, blocked air vents, faulty devices, poor installation and maintenance), misuse of household and garden chemicals (child drinks weed killer kept in lemonade bottle), etc.
• Cuts. These include cuts from broken glass, a knife in the spoon tray (fumbling for a spoon cut fingers on knife), misuse of knives and tools (using a knife as a screwdriver, misusing a wood chisel (gouging towards yourself instead of away) and carelessness (cutting your hand as you open a baked bean tin), etc.
• Electrocution. Often caused by tampering with electrical wiring and equipment, such as attempting to repair a vacuum cleaner or other faulty device. Can be caused by unskilled attempts to install or amend electrical wiring; can also be caused by misuse and lack of care of existing electrical circuits and equipment. Always instal and use a power leakage circuit breaker to protect you, particularly when using electrical equipment outside the house.
• Explosions. Caused by misuse of gas and or flammable fluids, for example exposing a naked flame when there is a gas leak or perhaps careless storage or use of petrol (or other flammable liquids) in a garage or workshop.
• Fire. Can be caused by some of the above behaviour and activity. Could also be caused by careless disposal of cigarettes, carelessness with the use of gas and electric fires indoors, careless use of a paraffin heater, or lack of care and common sense when burning rubbish or letting off fireworks.
• Machinery injury. Many injuries are caused by misuse of home machinery. For example, garden equipment (lawn mowers, garden shredders, hedge trimmers, chain saws), vehicles (cars, vans, motorcycles), kitchen equipment (blenders, waste disposal units), electrical tools (drills, planes or disk cutters).
• Combination. Any of the above causes could act in combination, for example misuse of an electric drill when repairing a car, causing fuel to leak, which in turn causes an explosion and fire.

Knowing the range of accidents that can occur in and around the home, we should all take extra care. Why make the home as secure from crime as you can and then allow yourself and family members to be injured or killed by stupid accidents? Countermeasures are simple: