Five practices, one method

Assessment and needs analysis

Operational needs analysis of an organisation’s security capability, and training needs analysis of its people. Produces a scored baseline, a prioritised gap register, costed options and a recommended sequence, together with an assessment of what survives after current support ends.

• Documentary review of establishment, budget, training and maintenance records
• Structured interviews across command, operations, support and oversight
• Observation of what actually happens, as distinct from what is written down
• Training needs analysis against the role rather than against an existing syllabus
• Comparison against genuinely comparable jurisdictions rather than a United Kingdom benchmark

Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance

Assessment and design of intelligence architecture: how collection is tasked and authorised, how product is fused and analysed, and whether what results survives contest. Includes maritime and border domain awareness.

• Collection planning and tasking, and the authorisation record that has to sit behind it
• Fusion and analysis capability, including analyst establishment, competence and tooling
• The pathway from intelligence to charge, and the points at which cases fail on the way
• Maritime and border domain awareness, sensor coverage, gaps and inter-agency coordination
• Communications data and signals analysis, and what it can and cannot lawfully support
• Evidential continuity, retention and disclosure practice designed in from the outset

Training, mentoring and capability development

Turning a diagnosis into capability the institution owns. Programme design against the role, delivery alongside host-nation instructors, and one-to-one mentoring of command teams and senior officials.

• Training programme design against the requirement rather than an off-the-shelf syllabus
• Delivery alongside host-nation instructors, so the programme outlives our involvement
• One-to-one mentoring of commanders, analysts and senior officials
• Establishment against strength, and the route from entrant to senior command
• Succession planning, and dependence on seconded, contracted or acting appointments
• Through-life cost and sustainment of donated and in-kind equipment

Programme and deployed team management

Recruiting, contracting and managing specialist personnel on operations under host-nation law, with contract and delivery responsibility to the client. This is work we do now, not a capability we are describing in advance.

• Recruitment and vetting of specialist personnel against a defined requirement
• Engagement and management under host-nation law, with a stated duty of care
• Contract management, reporting and delivery assurance to the client
• Deployment, rotation, insurance and medical arrangements
• Equipment sourcing and lifecycle support, subject to export control licensing

Sensors, systems and data

Advice on the technology that border and maritime security actually runs on, from people who have specified, installed and lived with it. Radar and sensor coverage, communications architecture, unmanned systems, and the use of data to direct scarce resources rather than simply to record what happened.

• Radar, optical and acoustic sensor coverage, and where the real gaps sit rather than the mapped ones
• Communications architecture across agencies that were not designed to talk to one another
• Detection of irregular crossing and movement, including approaches that do not depend on continuous manned observation
• Unmanned aerial systems: what they realistically deliver, what they cost to sustain, and what permissions they require
• Data and analytics applied to resource allocation, so that patrols and assets are directed by evidence
• Independent evaluation of commercial systems, including work alongside major technology providers on irregular crossing