Roles and Responsibilities

The primary objective for the Community Safety department is to keep everyone within the campus community safe and free from harm. We do this through ensuring we have sufficient resources to be able to react quickly when responding to calls for help, and also by being able to provide pro-active advice and reassurance, when needed.

The secondary objective is to prevent crime and to support the police and emergency services responding to calls for assistance. Typically, this will include reporting crime in progress, dealing with first aid incidents, or safely helping to evacuate buildings when the fire alarm has been activated.

The Community Safety team protects the wellbeing of people and the security of property 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year through a variety of measures. For your peace of mind and wellbeing, all officers are fully-qualified in first aid and defibrillator usage, and trained in fire safety, to include evacuation chair support so they can quickly help the evacuation of vulnerable and disabled people, when necessary.

Safety and security on campus takes a number of forms. We compliment operational officers ‘out on the ground’ with electronic systems operated from our whole-time Control Centre, such as CCTV, access control and fire and intruder detection alarms. This ensures we can respond in the most appropriate way to each incident. Tactically, we employ high-visibility patrolling to reduce crime and the opportunities to commit crime, together with using easily recognisable, marked vehicles. Additionally, we operate cycle patrols and can provide rapid responses to fire alarms and first aid emergencies using 'pedal power' to beat the traffic!

Did you know? The team responds to approximately 1,000 fire alarms each year, all within five minutes of activation and usually even faster! Officers are highly-trained and can quickly establish if it is a real fire or a false alarm. This means the fire services are only called in the event of a real fire, which saves their time and resources to benefit the wider community.

We cannot do this alone. We know that collaborative working is vital at Warwick and we work closely with departments and individuals so they can act on sound and simple advice to protect themselves and their property.

‘Community Safety’ and security is everyone’s responsibility, from the protection of personal assets and those belonging to the University, through to crime prevention on a personal-safety level. The campus is an extremely safe place to be at any time of day or night, however, there may be risks when travelling away from the University, particularly in and around town and city centres.

The authority of the team is restricted to protecting our community and property on Campus, which is private land, and supporting students off Campus, where possible, including signposting to other University services, such as Wellbeing Support Services, as required. Officers have no more powers than any other citizen with regards to powers of arrest. There are clear boundaries of responsibility whereby police will be called when a crime is taking place and officers will support responding police officers only when instructed to do so, or where police officers are under direct threat and need urgent help.

Similarly, where a road traffic collision has taken place on public roads surrounding campus, Community Safety officers will support the local police, local authority and Highways Agency, only when requested to do so, to help control the flow of traffic and to keep people safe.

If you have any questions on personal safety on and off campus, Community Safety team members attend regular safety advice sessions in the Library alongside colleagues from the student Wellbeing Support Services department and local police. You can find timings and more information by following this link: https://warwick.ac.uk/services/wss/topics/safety 

Policies and Procedures

A full list of the Community Safety department's policies and procedures can be downloaded from the table below. Many policies are held centrally and as such, they are not included below. If you wish to see them, please follow this link to the Governance policy zoneLink opens in a new window.

Some policies are redacted to protect any personal information held within them. Additionally, some policies are not available for the public download to ensure protection of University assets. If you have any questions regarding these policies, please direct them to community.safety@warwick.ac.uk 

Community Safety Policy and Procedure Documents

Abandoned Cycles Procedure	Absence Reporting Procedure	Access Procedure, Plant Ops BSU	Alcohol and Drug Misuse First Aid Response
Annual Leave Request Procedures	Bomb Threat Procedure	Bomb Threats Form	Chaplaincy Security Policy
Community Speed Watch Procedure	Control Room Policy	Crime Prevention Guidelines	D3 Safe Register Proforma Statement
D4 Cannabis Testing and identification Proforma Statement	Documentary Written reports and Records	Dress Code	Emergency Action Procedure for Ammonia Leakage
Fire Alarms Procedure	Guidance On Sharps	High Priority Designated Night Patrols	Incident Investigation Guidance
Incident Scene Management	Key and Key Card Management	Leamington Grid Procedure	Lost and Found Reporting
Missing Persons Procedure	Off Campus Accommodation Emergency Call out	Permit To Work Procedure	Physics Gas Alarm System (PGAS - Bionics )
Powers to Arrest and Detain	Radio Protocols and Procedures	Response to Noise Complaints SOP	Response to the Possession of Illegal Substances and Room Searches on Campus SOP
Search Book Specimen	Security Alarms Procedure	Sexual Offences Reporting Guidance and Investigation Procedure	Shark Knife Procedure
Super Magnets Procedure		Traffic Control Procedure	Use of Body Worn Video cameras
Vehicle User Procedure	Violent Situations Procedure	Voi Scooter Misuse Reporting
Warwick Business Schools Locker Access Out of Hours	Warwick Child Protection Policy

Community Safety Key Performance Indicators

KPI Level	KPI	Measurement
Departmental	Officer(s) suitability and performance within the role based on number of training hours per annum	Community Safety training matrix
Departmental	Maintaining absence rate below 8% of potential attendance Maintaining attendance rate above 92%	Roster/manager records
Departmental	Maintaining a feedback rating for customer service of 9 out of 10 or above	Analysing feedback and complaints
Management	As a minimum, meet the required staffing level across shifts, 24/7/365, as per minimum staffing levels on the departmental roster	Community Safety roster
Operational	All fire alarm notifications responded to within 2 minutes from the control room and attended within 5 minutes	TRBOnet
Operational	All incidents responded to within specified time limits as per response times sheet	TRBOnet
Operational	Engage with the university community and attend events both organised and ad hoc (library safety sessions/pop up gazebo/kitchen visits) at least 12 times per year	iTrak reports
Administration	Response to digital communication within 2 working days	Email dip-test