The Security Industry Authority, the regulator which licences security guards, door supervisors and vehicle immobilisers, has secured a high level of compliance, the National Audit Office has reported. But there are buts … problems have undermined the authority’s reputation, the NAO says.
As at the end of May 2008, the authority had issued over 248,000 licences and compliance is over 90 per cent. (However, as some such as the Daily Mail stressed in their reports on October 17, that means perhaps 30,000 are not complying.) Its efficiency has, however, been hampered by poor forecasting of licensing demand and costs and difficulties with the computerised systems procured to process licence applications. Blame for inefficiency, is spread around by the NAO, also taking in the Home Office (for compromising the original system) and the security industry (making the applications).
When the authority was created in 2003, the licence fee was set at £190 but it was costing the authority £215 to process an application. As a result, the Authority needed an extra £17.4m of public funding in the four years 2004-05 and 2007-08 to carry out its work. In the winter of 2005-06, the authority’s original system for producing licences was unable to cope with the large number of later than planned applications the authority received. In autumn 2007, the authority’s replacement system was not ready on time and a backlog of applications arose. These two problems resulted in the authority incurring additional costs of £1m.
The Private Security Industry Act 2001 set up the Authority to regulate individuals, but in a number of other countries the equivalent bodies also regulate businesses. The authority operates a voluntary Approved Contractor Scheme for security businesses, designed to improve standards in the industry. There are over 500 Approved Contractors, which covers more than 55 per cent of the licensable security population. But the auditors add that there are more than 2,000 businesses in the industry ranging from large national companies to small businesses with few employees. Under the current legislation the authority does not always know which businesses employ which individuals. The NAO has recommended that in addition to individuals all private security businesses should be registered (at a ‘low cost’) with the Authority. The SIA has already started a feasibility study to consider the compulsory registration of private security companies, which will be completed in the new year.
Tim Burr, head of the National Audit Office, said: "The security industry has been subject to suspicion and even criminality in the past and the Security Industry Authority has done well to set up a licensing system which has secured a high level of compliance. Poor cost forecasting and ineffective management of the licensing scheme have, however, resulted in the SIA spending over £17m more than planned. The authority needs to improve the quality of its forecasting and its management of the scheme so that it is better equipped for dealing with future demand for licences."
Going into more of the details of the report: on enforcement, the NAO – repeatedly noting that the SIA ‘only has limited resources’ – found that the police were ‘generally content’ with their operational relationship with the authority. (However, further into the report, the NAO speaks of police opinion of the SIA being mixed – some police regarding it as under-resourced, some feeling it does have the resources, but is ‘not well run’ and lacks ‘street presence’.) “Most police forces we spoke to told us that the existence of the authority and compulsory licensing of door staff had increased professionalism in the industry …”. Those police described compliance as ‘large-scale’. Local authorities who also deal with doors through pub and club licensing, had criticisms, and some compared the SIA unfavourably with another (casino) regulator, the Gambling Commission: “Some said they did not know their contacts in the authority, were critical of the lack of sanctions and concerned about staff turnover in the authority’s enforcement teams.” That is, compliance staff (there’s about 54) are going to other regulators, such as the Healthcare Commission. Also, the SIA does ‘not routinely’ receive feedback on any inspections by police or others who do SIA-related checks. That said, many local authorities said they do not regularly check door staff for their SIA badges – which, if the SIA compliance teams are so thinly spread, begs the question of who (if anyone) does check.
On the approved contractor scheme, which is declared a success, the NAO suggests, over time, ACS firms ought to raise standards of staff training. The NAO speaks of a lack of information about the industry and (hence) a difficulty by the SIA engaging with stake-holders. The regulator’s previous (under the chief exec John Saunders regime) effort to set up stakeholder dvisory committees ‘lapsed’, as the NAO puts it.
For those of you who detest KPIs – key performance indicators – the auditors say that it’s difficult to say if the regulator has met its objectives, because there aren’t detailed KPIs – though the ‘2008-09 business plan contains more specific objectives’.
Looking back to the March 2006 ‘big bang’ (as the auditors call it) of national licences for contract guards and public space CCTV operators, the SIA agreed with the British Security Industry Association, to send ‘formally … monthly profiles of applications for each company. The authority paid the BSIA £30,000 to administer this agreement for its members but terminated it in April 2005 as the information being provided was neither timely nor accurate. The authority obtained a reduction in the payment made to the BSIA to £10,000 to reflect this.” As the report points out – and others at the time did – people applying left it to the last minute, as they paid the full fee however early they applied. As the NAO points out, this was laid down in the PSIA.
The NAO also picks over the BT/Synegra application processing contract. Briefly, it took more than twice as long and was twice as costly to process an application as estimated. And as for the autumn 2007 backlog – SIA chief exec was quoted in the November print issue of Professional Security Magazine saying the system then ‘died’ – for six weeks in November to December 2007, virtually no new applications were processed.
And as for the ‘right to work’ affair, also last year, the NAO dates the beginning to April 2007, when a Border and Immigration Agency enforcement operation came upon 44 security company staff without the right to work in the UK. The upshot: “The authority has written to 7,729 licence holders, representing 3 per cent of licences, revoking their licences …” In other words, that’s nearly all the 9000 or so total of licences revoked or suspended overall so far.
Commenting
After publication of the report, Mike Wilson, SIA Chief Executive said: "We were glad to work closely with the NAO in providing them with information and advice about the SIA. We welcome and accept the NAO’s recommendations. Implementation of the report’s recommendations is already being planned. Indeed, in some areas, progress had already been made prior to the review, such as the feasibility study to consider the compulsory registration of private security companies. There will always be more to do, and we will continue to improve our regulatory regime and to raise standards in the private security industry to protect the public."
For the full 36-page report visit the NAO website:
