Some 1716 premises have had SIA checks in the last 13 months, according to the latest statistics released by the Security Industry Authority (SIA); for an average of 132 a month.
As for ‘enforcement operations’ – the part that typically door staff will see the SIA, checking badges, the number in a month may vary greatly, according to the figures for the last 13 months. The monthly totals ranged from a high of 529 in May, with the two largest single places Cardiff (93 premises) and Port Talbot (79); to a low of 48 in August (when the only place with premises in double figures checked was London, with 23). Another month with well above the average number of premises checked was December, with 217, when the single place with most checks was ‘central London’, with 64. Other places over the 13 months with more than 20 premises checked in a single calendar month were Chester (21 in December), Westminster in central London (21 in September); Bournemouth (21), Aberdeen (24) and Darlington (22) in June; in that exceptionally busy month of May 2023, central London (64), Bedford (31), Doncaster (51), Halifax (39), Edinburgh (41) and Dundee (49), besides the county of Essex; Nottingham in April (30) and central London again (26) in March.
The SIA has checked a round 200 premises in the first three months of 2024, in other words making a relatively quiet start to 2024 compared to the average of the last year. Southend, Peterborough, Wolverhampton, Mansfield, Manchester, Bradford and Inverness are places that SIA investigators have checked more than ten premises inside a month in ‘enforcement operations’ in those three months.
Operations may be with ‘enforcement partners’, or by the SIA alone. In the 13 months to March 2024, HM Revenue and Customs was a partner once, and otherwise the partners were most police forces, many more than once: Police Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, two of the four forces in Wales (South Wales and Dyfed-Powys) and in England the territorial forces Avon and Somerset, Cambridgeshire, City of London and the Metropolitan Police, Cheshire, Devon and Cornwall, Derbyshire, Dorset, Durham, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Northamptonshire, Surrey, Sussex, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, West Mercia and Wiltshire (in Swindon).
Going back over the last 12 months, the month with the most open (criminal) investigations at month’s end was July 2023, with 121, while November saw the first of now five months with under 100. February was the month with the fewest number of businesses under investigation, 70, while the median number of businesses under investigation in the 13 months since March 2023 (the middle number if you lined the 13 up) was 77. January was the month with the most businesses under investigation, 81.
As for the number of individuals under investigation in the last year, that reached a low of 170 in February, compared with a high of 229 in March 2023; that number was in the 220s from February to August 2023, hence the median number for the last 13 months was 217, in September. In those 13 months 78 cases were opened, or an average of six a month; and just over an average of seven cases a month were closed, or a total of 96.
While the SIA gives most publicity to cases that it takes to court, that can lead (if the defendant is found guilty) to typically a fine, that’s a relatively expensive and not the only option open to the regulator when it comes across wrong-doing. It can use what it terms in the jargon of regulation ‘non statutory disposals’, that don’t give the offender a criminal conviction. The SIA can give advice (not part of the stats) or a ‘verbal warning’ (which is recorded); or can issue a ‘written warning’; in the 13 months from March 2023 to March 2024, it issued some 222 ‘written warnings’, or an average of 17 a month, ranging from a high of 31 in December, to a low of four in October. Far less in use are ‘improvement notices’, which as the name suggests requires the person who has breached the Private Security Industry Act 2001 (which underpins the SIA) to shape up, and in the SIA’s words ‘is discharged when we are satisfied the improvements have been made’. In those 13 months from March 2023, only 11 improvement notices were made.
