Is the regulator of the private security industry like a pimp or a fag? That was the attention-grabbing question put by Dr Mark Button at a seminar in Portsmouth. Behind that provocative query was an acute analysis of where the regulation of private security has gone, where the Security Industry Authority is, and where it could or should go. Mark Rowe reports.
At the start of his talk, and speaking beforehand to Professional Security, Dr Mark Button pointed out that he is not saying the SIA is a pimp or a fag. In fact another academic, the Oxford Prof Lucia Zedner, raised this in 2006, asking if the SIA was not so much the regulator of the private security industry as its pimp (and to give the dictionary definition of such a person; someone who arranges prostitutes for clients and takes a percentage of the money – or more generally, someone who sells or promotes a service). The point; does any regulator end up being ‘captured’ by the industry that it’s regulating, rather than working for the public. Dr Mark Button suggested: “But what we potentially have, I think, with some of the reforms that are being mooted for the new regulatory regime is a ‘fag regulator’.” And to define fag, that’s the junior pupil at a school who does chores for senior pupils. In a word, a fag is a servant. <br><br>Might the relationship between the SIA and the security industry change this way? Dr Button asked whether the SIA owed its survival in 2010 to the industry. The authority has two people on its board with a security industry background, but most board members are independent. Mark Button asked if there is a risk that the SIA might be ‘captured’ by the industry, or the ‘creature’ of the private security industry rather than the public. As for the reason why the Coalition Government sought to abolish then reform the SIA in the first place, Mark said the reform of the private security industry had been more ideologically driven by ministers and advisers, to reduce the ‘quango state’, without serious discussion of the merits of regulation. Reform of the SIA could set back, or move forward, the private security industry. “There are a lot of challenges ahead, not lest some of the major sporting events and what they may or may not expose about the quality of the security industry in this country.” He summed up: “I am not saying the security industry regulator has become the fag of the industry; but there is a major risk that whatever emerges in the new regulatory regime may be a fag to the industry.” <br><br>Earlier, he went over the rationale for regulation as set out in the Private Security Industry Act 2001. One reason – ‘the big one’ – was to remove criminal involvement. Also: the raising of standards; the spread of good practice, and to enhance security, and improve accountability. And what has been created since 2001, Mark suggested, has had ‘a major impact on the level of criminal involvement in the industry’. Besides criminality, there were shortcomings of security people – guards afraid of the dark, untrained, or poorly trained. It’s debatable, he went on, to what extent the raising of standards and setting of minimum standards has happened, ‘but undoubtedly overall standards have improved since 2001’. And as for better security, ‘clearly if you have individuals working in the industry who are not competent or even worse, criminal, then if you can get rid of those from the industry, that is a very good way to enhance the security of society overall’. And, he added, there was a case made against such regulation. Such as, that security services are not different from catering, or cleaning. There is the principle caveat emptor (buyer beware). There’s the cost and bureaucracy; and the argument that regulation gives authority to an industry that does not deserve it. Going through those, Dr Mark Button pointed to the consequences of failed security – such as at airports on 9-11 – to argue that you should not treat security like another service. As for ‘buyer beware’, how can you judge that someone is honest? On the cost and bureaucracy of the SIA, some do speak of an over-bureaucratic SIA; but that is an argument to make the regulator less bureaucratic, he suggested – not to do away with it. <br><br>Dr Button has done some work for the United Nations which is looking at international standards of private security regulation. While the standards ‘vary massively’, most countries subject security staff to some regulatory control. In the UK, Dr Button pointed to resistance to security regulation from the 1960s; then acceptance as inevitable, marked by a (Conservative) Green Paper in 1996 and a (Labour) White Paper in 1999. From the PSIA in 2001, to 2010 we have had regulation. From 2010 (when the Conservative-led Coalition proposed first the abolition of the SIA as a quango, then announced a ‘phased transition to a new regulatory regime’) are we to see the dismantling of regulation? Dr Button asked. He suggested that the Government made a ‘rushed job’ of last year’s attempt at cutting the ‘quango state’, quoting House of Common public accounts committee criticism. “Who was calling for de-regulation? Nobody,” Mark said. Rather, people were calling for reform, to make regulation less bureaucratic; or, there were calls for more stringent regulation. <br><br>Speaking ahead of the SIA conference in Sheffield on October 12, he wondered aloud what might the new regulatory regime look like. A return to self-regulation as before 2001 is now unlikely, he said. (Elsewhere, he spoke of self-regulation of the press having been discredited by the News of the World hacking scandal; there was the risk of a self-regulated security industry being similarly discredited.) Regulation might be given to a private body, or some new body, as with solicitors and quantity surveyors, to name two occupations. Or, the Home Office may take responsibility for some SIA functions, and other functions may be contracted out. Transec, part of the Department for Transport, for instance, looks after rail and port security. Or might there be an ‘overseeing council’ as with medicine – the General Medical Council and related bodies – with council members from the industry, and lay people. Whatever the outcome, ‘we also have a whole series of challenges’. What about Scotland and Northern Ireland? And next summer’s Olympics? ‘We are now a devolved state and in Scotland and in Scotland and Northern Ireland responsibility for the security industry is their responsibility.’ Mark made the point that the Scottish Nationalist Party (now in power in Edinburgh) at its conference last year warned against the axing of the SIA. So if ‘we’, England and Wales, have a new regulatory body, it may well be that Scotland and Northern Ireland decide to keep what they have; or do something different. So there may be different rules in the four ‘countries’ of the UK. <br><br>As for the political agenda for privatisation, Mark made the point that a regulated and respected security industry makes it easier for private security to take on roles of the police and HM Prison Service; go back to lower standards and you have an ‘image problem’. Mark spoke also of the economics of security. Most purchasers of security see it as a ‘grudge cost’, and will buy the cheapest: “And if you fail to acknowledge that in regulation, you are opening the door to the return of the Dutch auction.” In other words, if it becomes easier to get around minimum standards, suppliers and buyers will. The implications of cheapest possible security may be different by security sector; where the capital costs are higher, as in cash in transit, it may be that standards will hold more than in door supervision or guarding. And lastly Mark Button (though a former assistant to senior Labour MP Bruce George, and a 2005 Labour parliamentary candidate in Portsmouth) quoted the former Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan: ‘Events, dear boy, events.’ In other words, it may be that some unforeseen event or affair – perhaps if there was a terrorist attack by a licensed security worker – leads to a change in policy. <br><br>From the floor<br><br>From the floor a member of the audience with an aviation and defence security background wondered if the ‘broke’ Ministry of Defence may contract out its security, to save money. Dr Button answered that privatisation of security was always contentious, giving the example of the IRA bombing of Deal barracks in 1989, where the security was private. Pressure on government budgets, however, might make such privatisation attractive. Professional Security raised the parallel debate over another SIA-badged sector: CCTV public space monitoring. There, at least in theory, the Liberal Democrat part of the Coalition is keen for more regulation of CCTV surveillance, to combat what they call the ‘database state’. Dr Button pointed to use of CCTV after the August riots in England; he doubted that anything would emerge that will seriously undermine the effectiveness of CCTV, which had proved so useful.
Dr Mark Button’s home page –
