The British Security Industry Association’s (BSIA) wholly owned subsidiary, Skills for Security has sold part of its share equity to The Banks Foundation (TBF). With a 49.9 per cent share in Skills, TBF will allocate all generated income to activities centred around encouraging young entrepreneurs by advancing their careers through training, salary support and start-up funding.
TBF was set up by entrepreneur and founder of CSL Group, Simon Banks, who’s been an advocate of supporting and mentoring young people into the IoT, Security and Electrotechnical sectors. TBF is not-for-profit and is a family foundation, designed to give something back after a lifetime career in the security industry. Under the new ownership, employees of the training body will also become shareholders of Skills for Security.
Simon Banks, pictured, said: “I’m passionate about helping young people realise their potential, whether through apprenticeships, entrepreneurship or both. TBF provides an important boost for young enterprise by seeking out people that have something you cannot teach, or are blocked from demonstrating their abilities by standard academia. By creating wealth in our sector, we will ensure we attract the very best talent and move the security sector forward, benefiting the entire value chain.
“Next month we kick off an initiative through 13 schools and colleges. Seven hundred students aged from 14 to 18 are encouraged to turn £1 into £10, that into £100 through audited trading and so on. This initiative seeks-out resourceful candidates that may think differently about business and opportunities.”
David Scott, Managing Director, Skills for Security, said: “This is such a positive step and will allow us to scale-up our training operations nationally. We are well used to Simon’s involvement as he’s been our hands-on Chairman for some time.
“Critical to the investment was to ensure our employees are all shareholders, something that Simon introduced into CSL some twenty years ago. This is massively important for morale as we grow and means that the team will be focused on the same goals whilst sharing in the financial rewards.”
