Almost 100 private investigators will be meeting in Walsall for the Association of British Investigators’ Annual General Meeting, at the Village Hotel, Walsall, on Saturday, April 19.
The meeting will be opened by the President, Richard Newman, who recently made the following statement to Professional Security Magazine:
"The Association of British Investigators has campaigned for investigators to be licensed for over 50 years. The constant delays from 2005 into 06, and 07, and 08, and with little sign of any declaration by the Home Office, 09? The Security Industry Authority and the Investigatorsโ Sector Group, want to get on with this. People are busy writing training courses and compiling qualifications. The only stumbling block appears to be the Home Office who claim to have been "overwhelmed" by the fact that 150 individuals, associations or institutes, have responded to the Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment. There are, according to the Security Industry Authority estimates, 10,000 investigators. My view is that there are 100,000 who fit the criteria laid down in the Private Security Industry Act 2001. This is a view which is shared, unofficially, by other Government bodies. Why should 150 responses cause so much of a delay? Five months and counting.
A proposed date of April 30 was previously released by the Security Industry Authority, inadvertently. No decision has yet been made about the date of the announcement. The date of April 30 for the publication of the Full Impact Assessment was apparently included in a draft internal planning document only, and has never been confirmed. Another Security Industry Authority person gave a "definitive" date, some years ago, which they later denied saying. The Investigators Sector Group organised an entire conference around such a statement.
I have said it before and I will say it again. The Information Commissioner’s Office wants to control data theft and "blagging". The Security Industry Authority is required by the Private Security Industry Act 2001 to licence investigators. If you are properly licensed, and abide by the rules, then there is no problem. The Information Commissioner’s Office and the Security Industry Authority can target their efforts against those who operate illegally, while the rest us get on with providing a good service to the insurance industry, the debt industry and those vulnerable people who need the service of legal proceedings to protect them."
ABI organisers add that members of the Association of British Investigators are now getting a little impatient and it is intimated that there will be a heated debate on Saturday, April 19.
