As featured in the November print edition of Professional Security Magazine (‘Authority with the handbrake on’, pictured), in November the Security Industry Authority has been running events around the UK to showcase its proposed business approval scheme, as a ‘fundamental re-set’ of its 17-year-old approved contractor scheme (ACS), Mark Rowe writes.
I understand that during this series of events SIA chief Michelle Russell and the ten largest guarding contractors are holding a meeting under the Chatham House Rule, for each to hear the other. Those guard firms not quite so large may be envious that they are not in the room. Where transparency is lacking, cynics will always suspect some sort of stitch-up. However it’s at least arguable that if the SIA has had a problem in its 20 years so far, it is that it has had far too few such candid conversations with its largest customers that it is there to serve; that the SIA, like its political master the Home Office, and its partner the police, take a ‘we know best’ attitude.
A view inside the SIA is that much is riding on this proposed business approval scheme; the SIA’s relevance; and therefore its credibility with the industry that pays for it, after the Home Office refused the SIA’s wish for compulsory licensing of security businesses, instead of the voluntary ACS, even though the Manchester Arena Inquiry chair Sir John Saunders wrote in favour of compulsory licensing.
The SIA and guard firms see much in common. It’s ironic, that 20 years ago the evil that the ACS was set up to do away with was the door security or guarding firm working off a kitchen table, paying cash in hand, avoiding National Insurance and tax, under-cutting legitimate businesses. Times have changed so that payments are electronic. Besides guarding contractors you have ‘labour providers’, whereby an app links workers seeking ‘gig’ jobs to those offering work, whether as a cleaner, plumber or security guard, on the same lines as Uber links drivers to people wanting a lift from A to B, and Just Eat links those too lazy to cook with commercial kitchens. The irony is that whereas 20 years ago working off a kitchen table was dubious, now it means you’re ‘agile’; it’s all the rage.
The argument against apps that ‘disrupt’ traditional ways of doing business is that ‘disrupt’ is a tech term for ‘under-cut’. Why pay for a black cab in London driven by a man who has all the streets in his head, when you can hire a driver from Eritrea who’s still learning English and who navigates off a map on a screen beside his steering wheel. The argument for apps is that it’s a free country and customers can choose; and guarding and facilities management contractors are using apps such as Earnflex, and Orka.
Figures in guarding complain that even large firms are subbing out work to non-ACS ‘labour providers’. As in any line of business that has middle-men, at least some of the margin goes to those passing on the work to those actually carrying out the tasks; and the sector is in perennial agreement that the basic problem is low pay, which puts off people from entering the security industry at all, and prompts them to leave (having gone through the training and badging, all costs) for £1 an hour more at a warehouse, which means guarding is chronically short of talent and experience.
Where this new landscape, that has cropped up since the Private Security Industry Act 2001 made the SIA, becomes dubious (so it is alleged) is if a labour provider has a link with a training company, and a customer asks the labour provider for x number of security guards and hey presto! the training company passes out x number of people who have passed the five-day course, even though their English is so poor they cannot possibly have taken in the learning.
One point, from yesterday. When Mitie hosted an IPSA gathering on the 12th floor of The Shard, Jason Towse, MD of the business services arm of the FM contractor, which includes security, described himself as ‘a lifer’. He’s the chair of the Security Skills Board that is working on a ‘profession map’, as a guide to anyone seeking a career in private security, and a National Skills Academy for security, aiming for a 2025 unveiling. Now Jason, like others on the board – to list them as he did, Tracey Plant (CIS), Stuart Kedward (Universal), Lisa Baskott, David Scott (Skills for Security), Satia Rai (IPSA, and Securitas) Gemma Quirke (Wilson James), Adrian White (Carlisle), John Lambert (Bold Security), Paul Lotter (Corps Security) plus from the police Supt Patrick Holdaway of the National Business Crime Centre (NBCC) and British Transport Police Deputy Chief Constable Alistair Sutherland – are doing that work as volunteers besides their (exacting) day jobs. Where are the app developers, the labour providers? They are too busy writing code, building their businesses, that they can sell to a larger tech firm (or a security of FM firm), so that they can start all over again, or buy an apartment in Cyprus; or wherever it is the successful go, to enjoy sunshine and avoid common people.
