Executive Protection Kensington

Family protection in Kensington is built around the school run before anything else. We look at the route, the drop off and collection points, how much of the wait is spent stationary, who else is present at the gate on a normal morning, and how much of the arrangement is already known outside the household. Small changes here, in timing, in approach, in who performs the collection, produce a disproportionate reduction in exposure and cost the family very little.

The second focus is the household itself. Staff, tutors, drivers, cleaners and contractors form a circle of access that is often larger than the principals realise and almost never documented. We establish who holds keys and codes, how that access is granted and withdrawn, and what a departing member of staff still knows a month later.

Coverage is calibrated to the family rather than to a single principal. In practice that usually means a low profile posture around children, delivered by officers who are unremarkable at a school gate, combined with a heavier and more conventional posture around a principal with a public profile. The two are planned together but are not the same deployment.

For households present only part of the year, the empty months are treated as part of the engagement rather than a gap in it. A property that is watched while unoccupied is a property whose occupation is known.

The discipline is executive protection as practised anywhere; Kensington changes the pattern of the day rather than the method.

The assessment is built around the family rather than an individual, and it starts with the school run because that is where the fixed points concentrate.

We record the route, the drop off and collection arrangements, how long the vehicle or the accompanying adult is stationary, who else is reliably present at that hour, and how the arrangement is communicated within the household and the school. We also establish how much of it is already known outside the family. School communities are social, and the combination of a named family, a named school and a fixed hour is often assembled without anyone intending it.

The household is assessed next. Staff, tutors, drivers, cleaners and contractors form a circle of access that in most Kensington households has never been written down. We document it, establish how access is granted and withdrawn, and identify what a departed member of staff still knows a month later.

For part year residents the assessment covers both states of the property, occupied and empty, and the transition between them. How an arrival is arranged, who is told and how far in advance, is examined as carefully as the security of the building, because a return that is known in advance is the exposure.

Family movement in Kensington is frequently the exposure that matters, and the finding is often residential protection rather than an officer at the shoulder.

The school calendar governs almost everything. During term the family's movement is at its most regular and most predictable, and the risk is accumulation rather than incident. At half term and over the holidays the pattern breaks, the family is frequently travelling, and the property stands empty. Both states carry exposure and they are not the same exposure.

The start of the academic year is a particular point. Routes, timings and arrangements are new, they settle quickly into a pattern that will hold for a year, and the fortnight in which they are established is the cheapest moment to shape them well. We prefer to be involved before that fortnight rather than after it.

The museums quarter and the high street bring their own seasonal footfall, heaviest through the summer and over the Christmas period, which affects movement on foot rather than at the residence.

For international households the exposure concentrates around arrival and departure, and those dates are typically known to agents, managers and service providers well before the family lands.

The eastward run into Knightsbridge is part of most weeks here, and executive protection in Knightsbridge covers that end of it.