Our partnerships

Did you know?

The University of Oxford has a low crime rate in comparison to similar institutions within the UK's Higher Education sector.

Both the Oxford Safer Communities Partnership and Thames Valley Police can evidence that Oxford does not have a high crime problem when compared to other cities of a comparable size in the Thames Valley.

 

 

Working closely with college porters is a vital component of what we do

Our objective

Our key objective is to maintain a safe and secure university estate. To achieve this, the Security Services team focuses on developing and maintaining effective and supportive internal and external partnerships. We work closely with all our partners to provide a visible and reassuring presence right across the University estate.

Who do we work with?

• Externally, we work with Oxford City Council, Thames Valley Police and the British Transport Police to share information on crime and incidents in support of more informed preventative action.
• Internally, we actively support the network of around 120 locally appointed Department Security Liaison Officers (SLOs) and a College Head Porters Group (HPLG). We provide this network with advice and support to prepare and maintain local physical security plans and Emergency Action Plans.

From experience, we know that security arrangements to protect local environments and functions benefit from local involvement. So University Departments appoint volunteer Security Liaison Officers to act as the focal point for delivering building security plans.

The Security Services team also provides regular briefings to SLOs and HPLG, offering a 24/7 point of contact and security training, awareness and education.  

Our approach

We adopt an ‘intelligence-led’ approach through all our partnerships. This includes:

• preparing Regular Strategic Threat Assessments to identify the longer term threats across our estate as well as the scope of, and projections for, growth in criminality.
• holding monthly meetings with our security partners to share information regarding crime and specific incidents. This enables the Security Services team to make best use of our technical and physical assets to prevent and reduce crime. 

Our crime and incident records continue to indicate that our partnership approach, along with the sharing of information and intelligence-led deployments, are having the desired effect in reducing incidents of reported crime.

We are pleased to say that, although the University will never be a completely crime-free zone, our strategy is delivering a safer and more secure environment.