The Security Industry Authority is forecasting in its latest annual report that business licensing will come in this year and next – bringing it £10m in two financial years.
A joint statement by the regulator chair and chief executive, says that ‘significant uncertainties remain as to when the new arrangements for regulating businesses will commence’. The SIA forecasts that its income from the approved contractor scheme (ACS), usually about £2m a year, will fall sharply. In terms of what the industry pays for the SIA, it’s a case of swings and roundabouts as it looks like the SIA will cut the price of a doorman, CCTV operator or contract guard’s application. The licence fee was kept at £220 for 2014-15 and the report speaks of ‘changes in 2015-16 to reflect the reduction in burden on individuals following the introduction of business licensing’.
The statement by Elizabeth France and Bill Butler recalls that in February 2014 the Home Office postponed the timetable of business licensing – it was to have become mandatory in April 2015 – and there the matter stands. The report says: “ We remain of the view that the introduction of business licensing is an important and necessary reform of the regulatory regime and hope that the position can be resolved as soon as possible to allow the industry the certainty it requires.”
As for some facts and figures, the ‘licensed population’, that is the number of people with SIA badges, averaged 379,532; and some 766 companies are members of the ACS, slightly higher than the year before. Assesment scores of contract companies are steadily rising. As for using the SIA, as the report points out you can now apply through the Post Office, ‘saving applicants time and money, and we are phasing out paper applications, reducing the number of applications rejected, and the associated costs and frustrations’. Likewise the SIA awaits the nod from the Home Office on licensing of private investigators, that the Home Secretary in summer 2013 said would happen. The report says that the regulator’s preparations are ‘well advanced and we are waiting for confirmation from the Home Office’.
As for finances, the SIA as in previous years gets by far the most income from licence applications: £23.4m in the year 2013-14, well down on the previous two years, as the SIA has seen a three-year cycle since badging began in the mid and late 2000s. By comparison £2.1m came from ACS subscriptions. The income of £25.6m compared with spending of £25.9m, giving the regulator a deficit of £274,000.
As for enforcement of the rules, the chief exec and chairman say: “Our staff worked closely with other enforcement partners to support action against organised crime gangs, resulting in a number of convictions and closures of businesses associated with organised crime. This has included work against businesses exploiting workers. In addition, our own formal investigations have resulted in 18 successful prosecutions.”
The report gives the example of how Merseyside Police identified that an organised crime group (OCG) was linked to an ACS approved security company. “The SIA identified that the [unnamed] business had changed its name and with that change the ACS approval was no longer valid. We advised the company director to ensure that his customers knew that his business no longer held ACS approval and visited customers to advise of the position. We estimate this intervention cost the company in excess of £1m of contracts.” The report points also to the first case of someone sent to prison for an offence under the Private Security Industry Act 2001 that set up the SIA; a London company director was found guilty of PSIA offences for employing migrant workers without SIA badges who did not have the right to work in the UK. The report also detailed work against forged and counterfeit SIA licences.
For the full report visit the SIA website – http://www.sia.homeoffice.gov.uk/Documents/annual-reports/sia_annual_report_13-14.pdf
