Latest News, Blogs & Announcements

A series of suspected arson attacks has probably permanently closed a community BMX bike track. The track in Wrexham cost £18,000 to complete, funded through grants and the local community council. Because the equipment was not insured the community council cannot afford to replace the burned wreckage. The track cost £11,000, mostly raised via grants, and the council added £7,000 for a site and soil survey, since it was on the site of a former tip. A Tensor security system for your premises can include automatic barriers and they are capable of operating alongside any installed access control or ticketing systems. All automatic car park barriers are supplied complete and are ready to accept power and data connections. Boom arms are available in a number of different lengths to suit various road widths. Optional extras include: a folding arm mechanism, impact release mechanism, hanging racks or barrier skirts and pedestals. Our experienced engineers can install each barrier, individually adjusting it to company specification.  

The BBC is planning to cut an estimated 2,000 jobs in order to trim one-fifth from its budget over the next five years. This follows the decision by the UK government to freeze the BBC licence fee for six years. Director of BBC News Helen Boaden announced there would be up to 800 post closures in news alone. That would be offset by the creation of new positions, meaning a total reduction in staff of between 550 and 650. Web enabled Time and Attendance systems from Tensor are unmatched on the market for comprehensive employee HR management. Our WinTAnet brings mobile and wireless technology based Time & Attendance for those employing 20 people to 10,000-plus, so it would suit large organisations like the BBC. Absenteeism and lateness reporting plus annualised hours and flexi patterns are just some of the advanced functions. An on-line Self Service module allows staff to check hours, request leave and other functions via internet, mobile or other communications.  

A large amount of diesel stolen from two vehicles has been the latest in a series of recent fuel theft incidents. Thieves siphoned the substantial quantities of diesel from two trucks in east Surrey. Police believe the theft of fuel from a building site in Walton-on-Thames could be linked to this incident. Officers explained that as fuel becomes more expensive it becomes more attractive to thieves and urged all vehicle owners to take extra precautions. The access control software for all of Tensor Access door and site security systems has a familiar Windows™ interface, providing quick and easy access to information regarding potential breaches. A range of monitoring devices and releases can be connected to your security network, which can be operated through your access control software including: alarms and hooters, door release buttons, electro-magnetic door locks, fingerprint readers and scanners. The software can configure doors to lock automatically on burglar alarms. CCTV monitoring and barriers can be integrated for total security coverage.

Two southern England police authorities could face having to cope with redundancies after signing a merger agreement. A new combined unit will share and manage police data across the two forces, will be based in existing locations across Hampshire and Thames Valley. A police statement said: “The creation of the joint unit will reduce the total number of posts required to deliver information management for the two forces.” The new unit will involve “few, if any, redundancies.” Tensor proximity read smart card clocking methods can save your organisation resources and improve efficiency. The most popular T1305 Tensor Smart Card is the size of a standard credit card (thin and flexible enough to be carried in your wallet) and operates our time and attendance, access control and visitor monitoring systems. The product comes in two different colours, is very secure and is virtually foolproof. The reason is that the smart card microchip is a passive device which holds a unique factory encoded ID number that cannot be duplicated.  

A teacher who stayed away from school by forging doctor’s notes has avoided being sent to prison. It was revealed in court that Kulvinder Billan forged half a dozen notes and a letter from a doctor so he could avoid teaching at a school in Northampton. The court heard the 31-year-old had a substantial amount of time off sick during his first academic year of 2009/10 but he found it difficult to go back to school in the following year. Pupils, parents and teachers can benefit from a scaled-down time and attendance regime. PC Clock from Tensor is a simple PC based booking system ideal for schools or other organisations where each pupil or employee has access to a PC. The input screen books them ‘in’ and ‘out’ and has an Analysis Module used to calculate the necessary information for the EU Working Time Directive. Pupils are simply presented with an input screen on their PC allowing them to clock in and out.  

A rural insurer says agricultural theft is on the rise, and this is estimated to have cost the UK farming industry £49.7m in 2010. NFU Mutual said ‘agri-crime’ on farms has risen from £41m in 2009, with power tools like chainsaws, electric drills and lawnmowers the most stolen items in 2010. The organisation surveyed its branch offices in rural towns and villages and found that two-thirds of branches had reported an increase in rural crime in their area. Among the varied options for business access control security supplied by Tensor is VMS (Visitor Management System). Simple to operate, and user friendly with WindowsTM style software, it allows reception and gatehouse staff to quickly check the identity or enter the details of visitors, and print their personalised ID pass. On arrival at a site, a full colour photograph is taken and personal details are recorded and digitally stored. Once the details are safely stored within the PC, an inexpensive bar coded pass is then issued containing a photograph, name and validation dates.  

An official at a leading union said it would stick up for disabled workers at a UK-wide firm. Phil Davies, GMB National Secretary responsible for Remploy members at 54 factories, said: “It is unbelievable that… able bodied bosses [are rewarded] for their failure to provide sufficient work for the factory that is leading to the closure threat.” Staff have received a pay rise offer of £250 while bosses’ bonuses took off. The union claims top Remploy managers’ bonuses average £5,230. All-in-one Time and Attendance recording and payroll systems are available from Tensor that include comprehensive user-definable working patterns, bonus payments, overtime and shifts. With the WinTA software you gain an at-a-glance summary of time and attendance details, showing individuals or groups of employees. In the Employee screens an index tab system is used to hold different categories of information. Some of these are user definable fields, including user definable tables and arrays. This makes available information that could normally take days to produce with older manual card based systems.  

Members of the public have been questioned by officers after a ‘fake police’ raid was mounted on a high street bank. Men dressed in fake police uniforms entered the premises in Glasgow last week and threatened a security guard with what appeared to be a gun. They then drove off towards the M8 motorway with an unspecified amount of cash. A week later officers have been questioning motorists and pedestrians in the area about the gang. Companies taking advantage of a Tensor access or visitor control system can use cutting edge technology like biometrics as a way to provide irrefutable proof of identity. Biometrics is the technique of studying the physical characteristics of a person such as your fingerprint, hand geometry, eye structure or voice pattern. For the effective ‘two-factor’ security authorisation of an individual, fingerprint recognition is used in conjunction with our contactless smart cards. Our recommended product for use with your Tensor system is our smart card access control scanner with built in fingerprint reader, as pictured.  

Following a ballot over a pay offer by members of the Communications Workers Union (CWU), more than 100 TV Licensing staff went on a 24-hour walkout. CWU assistant secretary Andy Furey said members are facing a pay cut in real terms. He added: “We're asking for a simple improvement in their pay offer which at 2.6% is almost half the rate of inflation.” The company concerned, Capita, said workers had received a “good and fair offer” considering the economic climate. As well as all aspects of clocking recording and payroll export, Tensor’s WinTAnet computerised Time and Attendance network handles absence planning and entitlement management. Graphical calendar charts in the WinTAnet software provides a colourful way of viewing an individual's or a department's absence records. Each employee can be allocated different entitlements for absence such as annual leave or allowed sickness. The Tensor system quickly identifies missing employees that are expected to be at work and then informs you via automatic email reporting.  

A famous landmark has had four plaques stolen from the premises. The bronze information plaques were all taken from mountings within York Minster precinct. York Minster Police said it had increased patrols in the area since the thefts. The incident has left the Minster’s Trust thousands of pounds out of pocket. Police said the CCTV system which usually monitored the Minster precinct was undergoing maintenance when the thieves struck. Tensor can install and maintain surveillance cameras or other security equipment for your premises. A Tensor digital CCTV system works extremely well as a standalone system, and can also be fully integrated with Tensor’s other access control or visitor monitoring equipment. A digital video recorder is able to achieve digital storage multiplexing across up to 16 channels in one standalone box, so all CCTV footage from your site can be recorded on a single unit. Maintenance contracts are available for support of your digital CCTV systems and software, and Tensor supports all of our surveillance products in-house.  

A firm is investigating going over to a regime of longer shift patterns as one way to slash costs. The south-western printing concern Wyndeham has entered talks with the Unite union over the economy drive at its Cornwall base. Wyndeham stated that the depot had “a very positive future” based on implementing changes. Steve Sibbald, Unite national officer, said: “Unite will be urging all employees not to accept any cuts in terms and conditions.” Tensor offers a range of combined payroll and clocking monitoring systems that meet all major hours calculation methods. The WinTAnet time and attendance system can deal with overtime, night shifts and more. Using WinTAnet’s software, work patterns are a combination of daily rules that are either a repeating pattern of shifts or a list of alternative rules. Here, WinTAnet will predict the most appropriate shift depending on when an employee starts work. Each type of pattern can be set up to override the normal pattern and use a specific shift on public holidays.  

The Ministry of Justice confirmed that taxis are being used to ferry defendants to court by a security company. The prisoners have been going to trial via this unusual mode of transport because the system used by the firm Serco to arrange pick-up and drop-off points failed. Serco, which is paid £42 million per year by the Government to do the job, thus had to rely upon cab drivers around its patch of south and east England. Tensor can supply Visitor Control and Monitoring or Prison Pass software and systems to both private companies and jails. The easy to install computer based pass system registers each visitor, both on and off site. The document scanning facility allows your organisation to make scanned digital copies of special identification documents, accreditations, licenses or insurance documentation provided by the visitor or contractor. Once recorded onto the system, these documents can be retrieved, viewed or recreated and printed on demand. This ensures the proper due diligence procedures have been followed.