So far so good was the verdict from Security Industry Authority chief executive John Saunders in a recent speech.
And it doesn’t stop there, was his message, while opening the Security Guarding Village at IFSEC on May 8.
He was speaking because the Home Office minister Paul Goggins, who was due to officially open the guarding part of the show, was re-shuffled by Prime Minister Tony Blair on May 5. He began by repeating the reason for SIA regulation: "Because the [security guarding] industry was not performing well enough, was not making enough money, was not sufficiently respected. It needed to change." Three years ago, the SIA came into existence: "That was a real fun time for maybe the first 12, 18 months; a world of flip-charts, committees, and groups, and meetings, and trying to figure out what licensing would look like. How would the training be delivered, who would deliver it. Where the CRB [Criminal Records Bureau] fit into it, all of that stuff and it was really, really good when it was on a flip-chart, because the only thing you could get wrong was something on a flip-chart … then the real fun started." That is, making it happen: "And the real world filled with trip wires, mischief, firing Exocets. Today, well, here we are. As of today, 220,000 individuals now have formal security qualifications; many of them, the first qualification they have ever had in their lives. I think that’s a huge achievement. One hundred and sixty thousand licence applications and 3,000 a week are still arriving." He stressed that March 20 was not a suggested date (when a licence for contract guards was the law), or a ‘loose guide’, but the date.
Continuing the numbers: 100,000 licences have been issued; 600 organisations are registered for the approved contractor scheme, and 250 applications have been received, and more than 150 approved by the SIA. "So, huge change," John Saunders said. "Why has it been achieved? Because a lot of people made it happen. The industry committed a lot of time, energy, a huge amount of investment, to drive through the transformation that everybody talks about." He paid tribute to the industry’s commitment. That said, he spoke also of compliance and enforcement: "A lot of people have invested a lot of money in improving this industry and they have expectations of the SIA. They expect the SIA to kill anybody who has not worked as hard as they have." While the SIA has what John Saunders called ‘enforcement solutions’, he spoke of the market place as more of an enforcer than the SIA: "Because the customers are stopping suppliers, customers are voting with their feet, saying ‘we are not satisfied with the way the regulation has been introduced, we are changing our supplier’, and we are seeing a lot of it happening." Approved companies will be able to reap opportunities, he suggested.
Licences and the ACS is not what it is all about: "That is not the end of the story," he added, describing licences and the ACS as just the foundation to enable the industry to introduce some fundamental change, ‘a 21st century security industry that we all want to work towards’. "What does that look like? It looks like a competitive industry, with a reputation and respect, that is entering into new markets, innovative, grasping huge opportunities, working with police and Government. With improved employment practices, a stable workforce. Improved margins. And importantly a new and healthier relationship between buyer and supplier. And a serious contributor to crime reduction and the protection of society. That is the picture that was painted maybe three, four years ago; it was not about some licensing, an ACS; it was actually changing this industry; and it is not the SIA that is changing this industry; the SIA is just a collaborator in all this; what is changing the industry is the industry. And I don’t think there has ever been a more important time for the industry; the opportunities are now awesome." Can the industry fulfil this transformation? He asked. Only if you make it happen. Using a rugby metaphor, John Saunders said: if the ball is bouncing around on the floor, pick it up and do something with it.
He added that a senior government official said to him that the job is done now, the industry is regulated. "He didn’t get it," John Saunders told the audience. "So far so good," John Saunders said, "but there is a lot more to do." He made a mocking reference to complaints of licence applications in the system for weeks, or months, suggesting that people were complaining of being in the system ‘for 17 or 18 years’.
That, and the question and answer session, was when the current backlog in licences – and hence the temporary relaxing of the percentages of licensed staff for approved companies – surfaced. Terry O’Neil of guard company auditor The Security Watchdog asked from the floor: "Some people argue that we are in a phoney war period. When do you think that is likely to end and the SIA will bear down in vengeance with people not complying with standards?" John Saunders replied that 120,000 security guards needed licences. The SIA tried as hard as we could to create arrangements where we could get a regular supply of applications; the system’s capability was 10,000 a month; at a push, 15,000. But the worst case scenario came, he admitted: "like a traffic jam". He added: "We opened up two more processing centres, one in Durham, one in London, doubled the number of staff. But still, come March 20, inevitably there was still a huge number of people who were not licensed, so we altered some rules around ACS temporarily; we changed the licence dispensation percentages temporarily. We made special arrangement around overseas applications, we did … everything we possibly could to ease the pain on the industry, because a lot didn’t cause this problem." The reality, he admitted, is that after March 20 some people are not licensed, through no fault of their own. "So we are not going to race around the country; nor are the police, trying to grab anybody who hasn’t a licence. Our whole approach was to say, let’s be sensible, proportionate, let’s figure out who has really tried hard and who hasn’t. There will be a time to settle down; that time is now a matter of weeks away. We thought the backlog would be cleared by now, but it is still 3,000 [applications] a week. We still have three processing centres; but sooner or later someone is going to see a hanging." That is, people punished for not applying in time. "But I stress," John Saunders repeated, "the most powerful mechanism is the market." That is, the market is a force for compliance. During a reply to a question from Patrick Somerville of IPSA, John Saunders spoke of a possible next stage in the licence process; approved companies doing some of the work for the SIA, as a sign of the SIA’s confidence in them.
