
- Posted By Scott
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- Feb 24, 2018
When should a condominium do a Security Audit?
At 3D Security Services, we are believers in education and certification. As with any intellectual endeavour, review is critical. I had the opportunity to be reading Timothy D. Gilles’ excellent text book “How to Develop and Implement a Security Master Planâ€, and one of the sentences jumped out at me as very relevant to the condominium security field.
In the opening chapter, Mr. Gilles discusses that while those in the Security Field are very cognizant about the risks and pitfalls of security, the high level executives running the corporations often have too many issues occupying their time and thoughts to dedicate much attention to Security. Mr. Gilles goes on to say that this is not be construed as a lack of concern for the safety and security of the business and employees but is just indicative of the number of weighty issues that the executives must consider.
It has been our experience that this is true in the condominium industry, more so now with all the changes and extra requirements that have been brought on by the changing provincial legislation. Condominium Managers and Board of Directors (for the most part) are concerned with the safety and security of their residents and the facility. Unfortunately there are so many other issues that take up their time; security sometimes does not come to the front of the line without a security incident as a catalyst.
We have invested effort into education the Condominium industry as a whole on security best practice – look for our coming YouTube channel to further this education. We have traveled to many different cities to present on the subject and one common question is “When should a condominium commission a security auditâ€
It has been our experience that a condominium chose to undertake a security audit during one of three times. Two are proactive and the third is reactive
The reactive time is after a security, or rash of security, incidents have taken place. A condominium that suffers serious break-ins, vandalism, theft or assault will look to better protect their residents by identifying and rectifying the vulnerabilities within the condominium. This starts with a security audit which is an independent review of the current security solutions against a set of establish standards.
A second time that condominiums proactively undertake a security audit is before they update their Reserve Fund Study (RFS) report. Very few of the RFS reports that we review incorporate physical security components. By completing the assessment in advance of the report, the approved recommendations from the security audit can be provided to the engineer completing the study and incorporated into the funding schedule.
Recently, we have seen a trend where condominiums are proactively commissioning a Security Audit in their first year of operations. This way the security report with the vulnerabilities is provided to the engineer conducting the Performance Audit. In all cases when this has been done, at least a few of the vulnerabilities were judged to be construction deficiencies and were included on the report as a warrantable item. In most cases, these items were fixed by the developer at no cost to the condominium.
Ideally, the perfect time to conduct a security audit would be in advance of any security incident that could potentially harm a resident (or their property) or effect the well being of the condominium - either the reputation of the building and/or management company, financially, or legally.