The SIA-Changing Agenda conference saw an outbreak of plain talk at Leicester on May 9. Where did it leave everyone, after the cathartic experience of the Security Industry Authority holding its hands up to past shortcomings, and proposing a better future? Before a full report on the day’s speakers, Mark Rowe offers an assessment.
Going into the venue, Richard Newman, president of the Association of British Investigators (ABI), said that he had met new SIA chairman Baroness Ruth Henig, at the official opening of the Sorensen Centre in Worcester last month. He raised ABI concerns about progress towards a licence for private investigators, and Ruth Henig invited him and Institute of Professional Investigators president Nicola Amsel to meet at the House of Lords. So while the University of Leicester was not Ruth Henig’s first outing – she was the after-dinner speaker at the London Chamber of Commerce’s annual security dinner in March – it was a good sign that she was already listening, having understandably spent time quietly mastering her brief since taking the chair in January. Arguably she shone best during the question and answer session after her speech. Ian Paton, head of security at Focus DIY, who last issue wrote that he was ‘unconvinced that the higher quality of guard promised has yet materialised’ asked about guards who are ‘unable to converse in English, they can’t read a sign in English, and certainly can’t write in English. Would you consider that to be malpractice as a result of training?’
Ruth Henig replied: "I understand where you are coming from; I think this is an issue for Skills for Security (SfS) and the training bodies. They run the courses, they set the training standards and decide who passes the examinations." It was not directly an issue for the SIA, she added; although as was said later in the day, it does reflect on the SIA whose name is on a guard’s badge. Ian Paton replied that it was fundamental from his (end user) point of view if a guard cannot read and write in English. Yet the training examination is in English. Henig then nimbly asked SfS chief executive Linda Sharpe, who was sitting at the back, to come in. Linda Sharpe stood and said: "This issue is very current at the moment. It is something that Skills for Security is working on, particularly with the awarding bodies." She went on to speak of candidates being put on training courses without sufficient assessment: "It has been brought to the attention of the training bodies. There is a group set up to look at it." Ian Paton then addressed Linda Sharpe, who had to agree non-English speaking officers were a problem, for health and safety reasons. Such a public putting on the spot of Skills for Security led to a tiny buzz of an undercurrent from the audience. It showed that Ruth Henig is an assured operator – who smiles, too! Also noteworthy was the woman Ruth Henig walked with in conversation, from the venue to the lunch room: Geraldine Larkin, the chief exec of the Private Security Authority, the Irish equivalent of the SIA. Another sign that regulators are looking to learn. To be fair, by the way, someone pointed out to Professional Security a case for non-English speaking security officers in ethic minority areas, such as Leicester: what if there is an emergency, and an English-speaking officer and signs in English hinder, say, an evacuation? Is that reckless? Negligent?
At the lunch table, a man from an SIA-approved door superviser contractor felt it was a shame; regulation could have been better. SIA inspectors had not been seen in the last year. Instead, checks were by police, and if a police officer was shown a LDN (licence dispensation notice) how did the police officer know what to look for? At checks, the pub or club might present the three doormen on a door with licences, while two without take their tie off and sit for half an hour; how are the inspectors to know? As the man added, only by whistle-blowers. His company had spent thousands on gaining approved status and what did they have for it? There was the advantage of LDNs, because the company had waited three months for licences and in that time the reason someone went for a door job – financial – would pass; the person would get say a supermarket job. Yet the major leisure operators were not asking for approved companies in tenders. The man felt that margins were getting smaller. Leisure companies saw door staff as a fixed cost and want the minimum. For example, come the ban on smoking from July, that door staff will probably be the ones to enforce in pubs and clubs, it will mean detaching door staff from the existing team. He did concede that the ban in Scotland had come in fine. He did recall the welcome for one SIA badge rather than many local authority badges. But whereas a council would issue a temporary say six month badge for a newcomer to see if he did want the work, the newcomer now has to pay for training and licence application and from getting £7 an hour while on an LDN will demand £10 as a badged doorman, or go elsewhere – that is, the company’s investment going too. The man complained that control and restraint and first aid, in the former local authority door staff training, had been taken out of the SIA’s. He related the story of having been in a fight while a fellow door man stood by, saying afterwards that he had been trained that violence was only a very last resort. The man rolled his eyes. His company was now looking at plastic cuffs to restrain offenders, bearing in mind that police response times might be 45 minutes. Yet whereas once the 18 or 19-year-old newcomer could learn on the job, as part of a more experienced team, now the door company was having to throw such new staff in. The man made the point that those at the conference had already made an investment. What of the ‘Joe Bloggses’ that are not making the investment, and were not attending the conference?
As ever, what was not said, who was not there, was as significant as what was said. In a typically buccaneering speech as a critic of the SIA so far, Richard Childs, former Lincolnshire Chief Constable, wondered aloud if the authority had had a ‘road to Damascus’ conversion. In a remarkable debate with the former acting, now vice-chairman of the SIA, Robin Dahlberg conceded many of Childs’ criticisms. Acutely, Childs noted that suddenly the SIA was not using a word of former chief executive John Saunders – transformation – any more. Dahlberg replied: "We have to be realistic; we cannot do some things." It was the closest the day came to blaming it all on the departed SIA chief executive, indeed it was one of the few mentions of him. To be fair to Saunders, transformation has been a word used by New Labour, not just him. Whoever becomes the next chief exec was the most important person not to be there. It could be significant that the SIA has launched policy documents – such as its corporate and business plan, and, during the conference, its ‘stake-holder engagement strategy’ – before the chief exec is in place, presumably to set the authority’s path. A clue as to whether the new chief exec was in the audience – a speaker, deputy chief exec Andy Drane – came when he spoke of having volunteered to act as chief exec and hold the fort ‘until he [the new chief executive] arrives’.
Richard Childs said that he was encouraged by the day. Certainly he and Robin Dahlberg got (roughly) equal applause in their for and against debate, chaired by former SIA chairman Peter Hermitage, now part of Prof Martin Gill’s Perpetuity consultancy, the day’s organisers, as incidentally is John Purnell, former Tesco security man.
At Live8 concerts worldwide in 2005, everyone felt good they were helping Africa. Yet Africa still starves. After the Changing Agenda conference, what has changed? The SIA proposed to do better, now that the sheer crush of getting licences through the system around the March 2006 deadline had passed. An insight into those days came when Peter Hermitage asked Robin Dahlberg about the pressures of someone inside the SIA. Dahlberg tartly replied that he did not think it a coincidence that he [Hermitage] resigned about 15 months ago.
Such public confession left the SIA stronger. Some had sought to ignore or subvert licensing – some quite senior, and at least one firm attending the conference. The SIA spoke of engaging better with the industry. Put another way, the security industry has to engage with the SIA; because the authority is, to use a phrase Ruth Henig used about herself, the ‘new kid’. And as the MD of one SIA-approved contractor recently pointed out to Professional Security, companies only have so much money to spend on trade bodies and so on. If a company paid to be a member of three or four before the SIA, it may cut one. But for those who believe in actions more than words, despite Ruth Henig’s new broom the telling moment came when Peter Hermitage asked SIA staff to stand up, so the audience could see who they were, to give them opinions. But the SIA was not spread over the rows of chairs, to better engage with everyone; they were sitting together; and when Peter Hermitage asked them to stand a second time, they stayed seated.
