The Australian National University will outsource its remaining core of staff security officers in a move which will risk campus safety, its incumbent guards say.
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The concerns of the experienced officers and their union have been bolstered by recommendations from a confidential external security review which found the quality of contract staff was "inconsistent", with workers who were often poorly trained, lacked customer focus and had poor language skills.
The university has justified the change – set, due to unfilled vacancies, to cut three permanent staff members but five positions – as providing greater flexibility and capacity.
The staff union, United Voice, has said another two security officers with specialised skills in the Research School of Chemistry were advised this month their positions were also under threat.
Shane Stuart is one of three security officers whose positions will be cut from the facilities and services division.
He warned his experience and that of his colleagues would be missed.
"Every one of us has done over 10 years and we believe if you replace us with contract security that knowledge is going to be gone and you'll have to rebuild, and that's a risk to everyone – whether buildings, people, experiments," Mr Stuart said.
"There's sensitive areas on the ANU campus and we have the corporate knowledge to know the level of sensitivity, to know how to prioritise the alarms."
The changes would retain a handful of security management, with a single senior control room officer the lowest ranking inhouse staff.
An ANU spokesman said the contractor, SNP Security, had provided about 80 per cent of all security patrols – including all overnight services – for more than four years.
"With the changes in technology and university requirements, the need for building-based security personnel has declined," he said.
The external review, completed in March last year, said the ANU had doubled its on-campus living student population in recent years and added significant quantities of floor space.
It found ANU security was, overall, "well managed and resourced", but pointed to the limitations of a "partially trained workforce", including a lack of staff with the ability to access CCTV footage.
"It is probably only a matter of time before there is a critical situation where such information is urgently required – to have just one officer able to access it creates risk," it stated.
ANU documents said the planned shifts would allow security management to focus more on strategy.
The documents show there were 22 casual posts filled by contract staff, and United Voice ACT branch secretary Lyndal Ryan said more than 200 people had filled those positions since 2009.
An SNP statement said the company provided appropriate training tailored to individual worksites, but there was no answer to questions about staff turnover.
Ms Ryan said United Voice would launch legal action if the outsourcing to SNP went ahead.
The ANU spokesman said an arrangement which limited the use of extra contract labour expired in September last year.
Employees within the Research School of Chemistry were not affected by the proposed plans, he said.
