Mark Rowe concludes a two-part review of the Security Industry Authority as it nears its 20th birthday – having come into being as a result of the Private Security Industry Act 2011, and launching at a conference in London (compered by Angela Rippon) in April 2003. Most of the income for the regulator, and public exposure, is through the badging of individuals (pictured); the SIA also runs an approved contractor scheme (ACS) that about 800 firms are members of at any time.
A Freedom of Information Act (FoI) request was published online by the SIA in September, asking: ‘can you provide the names of the top-scoring ACS companies. I would like this information for the top 5pc highest scoring companies’.
The response was to confirm that the SIA holds the information have requested. However, it was considered exempt from disclosure under section 43(2) of the Act.
Information is exempt if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person; in this instance, the businesses within the Approved Contractor Scheme. Security businesses compete by offering something different to their competitors and this difference can include the information being sought in this request (business ranking within the Approved Contractor Scheme). The SIA considers that this information is intrinsically sensitive, not within the public domain and likely to be beneficial to competitors in the commercial market place and therefore of commercial value. The public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosing it, the SIA added. This was in the name of the Approved Contractor Scheme operating in a fair environment and for – a wish much heard in guarding circles – a ‘level playing field’.
A problem with that decision is – why go to the trouble of acquiring a score, if it’s not publicised; presumably gaining a higher score would be something to shout about? And if one guard firm has scored higher than another, so what? Surely a level playing field is only possible with disclosure of all scores? Any cafe on any street has its four or five or whatever star food hygiene rating from the council, and you can search at https://ratings.food.gov.uk/.
Carry out an internet search for any major guard firm, and ACS score; and the score does not come up. That would suggest the majors do not make much of their approved status; and they are the companies with marketing staff to draw up materials to promote such a thing. The SIA describes the ACS as a quality assurance scheme; a ‘hallmark of quality’. Here then we come to a problem shared with security services more generally; how do you quantify quality? If I go in an office toilet and loo paper is unrolled on the floor and dust on a shelf, I can tell the cleaning is of poor (or no) quality. Yet how to know a place has good security or not? I may feel secure, or may fear I’ll become a victim of crime; but how sensible is that feeling? Only after an incident – a terror act such as the 2017 Arena bombing, or a fire or flood or fire alarm test – may shortcomings in security officers be revealed. Then it’s too late.
Is 128 good?
Back to the ACS; the SIA point out that approved contractors may only sub-contract to other approved contractors. That doesn’t tell us what value an approved firm brings (and value was the subject of part one of this review). Approval is a pass or fail; there’s no bronze-silver-gold to inform a buying decision (and allow a firm of higher status to charge more). The ACS scores a firm against 78 factors, some to do with ‘service delivery’, the officer’s work, such as training; some less obviously so, such as a company pensions policy, and equality and diversity. Even the SIA’s website admits that an approved company’s score does not tell ‘the whole story’ about that firm. In any case, say it has a score of 128. The maximum score that an ACS company can achieve is 145. Is the 128 good? A pyramid diagram on the SIA website tells you that a score of 128 puts a firm in the top three per cent of approved contractors; and a score of 112 puts a firm in the top ten per cent. To a buyer of guarding services, a procurement specialist who is also buying toilet paper, how valuable is any ACS score, in informing a buying decision?
Three masters
Like the BBC, the SIA can never please everybody. Whether its output or how it’s paid for. Was it an historic error to charge the individual officer, rather than the security business? The SIA was ready to licence businesses in the mid-2010s, and only waited for Home Office, that is political, say-so. It may come yet with the Manchester Arena Inquiry, as part of its volume one findings of June 2021; though again, that requires political sign-off.
To adapt a point in our feature on SIA chief Michelle Russell in the April print edition of Professional Security Magazine, the SIA has to show value to three constituencies: not only the industry that it regulates, but its political master the Home Office; and the public. As soon as the SIA talks about the confidence of the public in private security – protecting it at work and play – and about private security having the trust of the police as a partner, again we are talking about qualities hard to measure.
Perhaps the SIA is like the BBC and the television licence, an institution forever to be grumbled about, its value disputed. If the regulator were abolished, the industry would probably (after painfully long talking) have to come up with ingredients that would add up to much like the SIA.
Picture by Mark Rowe: SIA-badged security officers at Coalville FC in Leicestershire, at their recent hard-fought 2-2 draw with Redditch in the Southern League Premier Central.
For part one: on SIA value, click here.
