The prospect of a refreshed Security Industry Authority (SIA) – under a soon to be announced new chief executive – was outlined orporate in the SIA’s Business Plan 2007/08 to 2009/10.
The publication offered the authority’s focus for 2007-8, objectives, financial plans and an income and expenditure summary. The document said: “We need to refresh our stakeholder engagement particularly with the industry we regulate, ensuring that we understand the wide range of interests.” Among conciliatory statements, the report said that the SIA expects by next year ‘to have made significant improvements to the way we work with stakeholders’. Promised by September is a ‘new and redesigned licence application system’, with more done on-line and less demand on call centres. It suggests a target of processing at least 80 per cent of applications within 30 working days (that is, six weeks), after ‘receiving an application suitable for processing’. In other words, that time does not include time for an applicant to send paperwork in the first place and have it sent back as improperly completed.
The report admits to ‘current customer dissatisfaction’: “For much of 2006/07, this was primarily related to licence processing times and call centre performance, which is not surprising, given the processing problems. A review of the licensing system, in consultation with our customers, has shown some need for streamlining and simplification whilst improving the robustness of identity checking.’ While the authority continues to defend the backlog at the March 20, 2006 deadline for England and Wales guards and CCTV operators, claiming late applications, the report admits that only during the last quarter of 2006-7 did performance improve significantly.
The authority says that it recognises the impact of regulation on the private security industry and acknowledges responsibility to manage it, ‘in a way that does not unnecessarily intrude into legitimate commercial decision-making or impose unnecessary administrative burdens’.
While re-making the case for the increase in licence fee from £190 to £245, the SIA points to its recent London head office move from Wetminster to Holborn, ‘which is saving over £100,000 each year’, according to the report. Talking of finances – April’s price rise due to the SIA’s continuing inability to break even, as the Government wants it to – the document speaks of a financial deficit for 2007-8 of £2.1m or less. Nor does an end to the deficit seem definite soon: “By March 2008, we will have made satisfactory progress to achieve financial self-sufficiency over the life of this corporate plan.” The document warns that the licence fee will be reviewed each year, as will the cost of approved status, though the ACS does not cross-subsidise licensing costs. Income from the ACS is far less than individual licences – for the year 2007-8, forecast at £1.4m compared with £17m. In its forecasts, the SIA has assumed an annual churn rate of 24 per cent for door supervisors, and 20pc for other manned guarding sectors. As the document goes on to admit, the churn rate is the least certain of its forecasts. That is, a higher than predicted turnover of staff could mean more income for the regulator.
The regulator promises for the year 2007-8 to ‘improve the licensing process whilst maintaining the robustness of decision-making and improving identity-checking … We expect this investment to have a major impact on user perceptions of our customer service and reduce unnecessary burdens on individuals and businesses.’
As for the story so far, the report speaks of ‘high levels of compliance with compulsory licensing’ in all sectors where licences are the law. The report addresses a complaint from guarding contractors that rival guard firms not meeting the law have not been punished – in the words of one guarding firm director to Professional Security, no ‘heads on sticks’. According to the report, some say enforcement is not tough enough, while others say it is too tough.
The report argues that compliance operations have been intelligence-led and targeted. It adds that its methods of ‘informal advice, warnings and improvement notices have been highly effective in securing compliance quickly whilst avoiding costly formal proceedings’. Significantly, given that the highest-profile enforcement by the SIA has been with Merseyside Police, the report adds that police are increasingly using the Private Security Industry Act 2001 to target organised crime: “Our partnership with the police is crucial to our success and we will take steps to make that relationship even more mutually productive and effective.”
As for the approved contractor scheme (ACS), where guarding sector concern centres on approved firms abusing licence dispensations, the document says that the SIA showed its determination to maintain the ACS standard by sanctioning certain companies, whether revoking ACS status or suspending the dispensation whereby guards can work before their SIA licence application leads to a badge. The report suggests a total of 370 ACS companies in March 2008, which compares with about 350 in spring 2007. So far, the report notes, the bringing in of licences has dominated. Leaving aside Scotland where licences become law from November, the report suggests it is time for reflection. “We must also take account of the particular issues and scale of the security challenge for the 2012 Olympics ensuring that the regulatory regime is helpful and relevant whilst continuing to protect the public,” a hint that London may find, as in previous Olympic Games, that the temporary demand for security staff far outstrips local, even national, supply.
As reported in recent issues of Professional Security, the SIA is well behind on its proposed timetable to licence private investigators (PIs). The report speaks of the Home Office starting (though no date is given) a public consultation (in the jargon, a regulatory impact assessment) on the licensing of private investigators and precognition agents. Assuming the answer is yes, the SIA says by January 2008, it will have published a plan for licensing PIs. Significantly, no timetable is offered for licences for Northern Ireland; nor for bailiffs (as reported last issue, the Government proposes that the SIA broadens its scope by licensing private bailiffs) nor security consultants. A topic repeatedly covered by Professional Security is the potential conflict between the SIA’s ACS and accreditation by police forces under the Police Reform Act 2002. On this score, the document only commits to continuing to ‘align’ the two. Nor does the SIA commit to more than ‘encouraging’ the public sector to buy security services from approved companies.
The plan is available for download on the SIA website:
