Combined Industries Theft Solutions

CITS

Chairman - Ian Elliott

Welcome to the CITS website and hopefully you will explore the site and find useful advice whether you be a police officer, a farmer, a builder or tradesperson, or a representative from a construction or utility company.

CITS, is a not for profit industry think tank, with its primary aim dedicated to reducing crime within the Agricultural and Construction industries. As such we engage and form partnerships with the Home Office, the Police, manufacturers, insurers and security businesses to design out crime.

As a group we are dedicated to offering advice and suggestions to better protect both large and small businesses alike from crime. This comes in many forms, from the established methods of thefts and burglaries, the increasing risk of frauds, to the super sophisticated electronic hacking attacks and cyber frauds. Businesses must be aware of the potential risks, even including that of the insider threats. Within the website you will find best practice suggestions and advice from experts from every field.

This year, 2025, CITS will continue to work with Police and create local Partnerships to assist with their understanding of the impact of crime upon our industries. As such we are committed to our Partnership with the National Construction and Agricultural Theft Team (NCATT) the Construction Equipment Association (CEA) and their Construction and Agricultural Security and Registration Scheme (CESAR) in providing specific training events for police officers around the Country.  Supported by companies such as Hitachi Construction Machinery, NFU Mutual, Cantrack, Leica Geosystems, the Clancy Group and Murphy’s we have trained over 500 officers last year. This endeavoured to give them an insight into identifying criminal networks targeting our industries. This included both plant and tool identification and recognising rogue movements and logistics of stolen plant and equipment.

The future 2025 training events will be published on this website.  We encourage Police services to contact us if they feel they would benefit a CITS/CESAR event being held in their force areas.

The next big project we are working towards and one that affects a huge number of small businesses and large companies equally, is that of the theft of tools from both sites and from vehicles. Too many tradesmen are losing the tools of their trade, causing horrendous problems. Thus we will be looking at what can be done, how we can protect the sites and vans and how we can make stolen tools less attractive to the second hand market. Working with (NCATT), we aim to promote the new Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill 2023 as it progresses to its final reading in Parliament and engage with its aims.

CITS will continue to encourage companies and tradesmen to review their tool security and promote how to best utilise the latest technologies available, which will help to better protect them. We will also support manufacturers registering the details of the purchaser at the point of sale, this will enable Police to identify the true owner. Small businesses can utilise aftermarket security to mark equipment cheaply and efficiently, van manufacturers can provide more theft resistant cargo areas to secure their contents, and we will also continue to encourage safer parking areas in hotels and car parks for work vans parked overnight. By embracing these aims we can make a big difference!

We also aim to work with the fantastic Security Awareness Special Interest Group (SASIG) to hold/host a number of cybercrime events, highlighting the huge danger that international E-criminals can wreak to businesses and the tricks to look out for to prevent you from becoming a victim.

Finally in May of this year we hope to run our main conference combining all the above subjects which will include panel discussions with both industry and Police experts. We will also be inviting exhibitors along to demonstrate their latest products and innovations to the audience to help reduce theft. More information will appear on the website over the coming weeks.

So please look around the site, use what reference materials may be of use and utilise them. Moreover become involved, and join our partnerships! If you like what you see become a member!

2025 is going to be a busy year! Please get involved and help with these challenges!

If you are interested in joining us and helping to fight the criminals then please contact Faye, by emailing her at faye@cits.uk.com.

Ian Elliott
CITS Chairman and Group Head of Security at the Clancy Group.
January 2025.