The Security Industry Authority (SIA) is ‘an expert and authoritative regulator that is punching above its weight to encourage the highest standards in the profession’, according to an independent reviewer of the regulator, Cabinet Office official Cristina Bizzi, for the Home Office.
The reviewer noted the SIA’s ‘cultural shift, initiated by the Chair and CEO’, that’s ‘moving the organisational focus more towards public safety’. Put in more detail later in the document, ‘the SIA has sought to expand its focus from tick-box compliance activities to a broader and more strategic approach to supporting public security and safeguarding’. That cultural change, the review noted darkly, ‘is yet to be embedded everywhere within the SIA’.
The reviewer found ‘scope for the SIA to raise its level of ambition yet further in cost reductions’. In careful words the review brought up the SIA’s relations with its ‘sponsoring department’, the Home Office; the suggestion was that the SIA required from its political master, to return to the words of the review ‘clarity about the scope and purpose of the organisation, and alignment of risk appetite with its sponsoring department’. On the other side of the coin, the review said that the ‘Home Office must set out a clear strategic direction for the SIA’. Home Office ministers have not told the SIA what they want the Authority to do; or in the language of the review, ‘it is not apparent that these priorities and expectations have been regularly and clearly articulated to the SIA on a strategic level’.
On the cost side, the review recommended that the Authority come up with a ‘financial efficiency plan’ by April 2025, to ‘enable the amount paid by the licence payer to remain as low as possible’. Also in terms of efficiency the review looked at digital ways of working, and asked the SIA ‘to automate more of its verification processes’ when officers apply for licences. In more detail, the SIA plans to upgrade to CRM 2016 and Microsoft Dynamics 365. The review found that ‘verification of licences in the field can be challenging for SIA inspectors to automate, particularly at venues where Wi-Fi or mobile data is patchy’, meaning inspectors have had to use pen and paper and make phone calls. The SIA is due to be part of wider governmental work to go digital with GOV.UK OneLogin.
Staff growth
The review called on the SIA to ‘reverse the recent growth in non-delivery staff’, dating from after the Manchester Arena Inquiry which found widespread shortcomings in the security around venues, which led to the SIA hiring more inspectors. The review recommended that the SIA do that ‘by increasing efficiency in its supporting and functional areas’; and, aim to reduce its spend on consultants and ‘contingent labour’ (a civil service term for temporary staff; for example in IT). For example SIA staff costs went up 17 per cent in the financial year 2022-23. The review did acknowledge for the SIA like the wider public sector ‘increased recruitment and retention challenges for specialist skills’ such as in IT.
Canary Wharf
With a nod to remote working during and since the covid pandemic meaning that the SIA like other bodies with numbers of commuters into London has more empty desks, particularly at the beginning and end of weeks, the review said that the SIA ‘must keep the occupation rate of its offices at Canary Wharf under review and further decrease its footprint, including pursuing opportunities for Government Property Agency (GPA) to re-let vacated space’. The SIA has a lease for its Canary Wharf head office to 2032; it has ‘commenced plans’ to give up half of this space; and a fifth, 21 per cent of former SIA office space has already been occupied by other public bodies. In line with ‘levelling up’ (the catchword of the early 2020s Conservative Government) the SIA ‘is also looking at opening access in the Midlands/North of England in the medium term’.
Licence fees
Most, about 94 per cent, of the SIA’s income (of, in round figures, £30m a year) comes from applications for individual badges (the rest, from the approved contractors scheme). The cost to apply for a three-year licence (by security officers, typically, ‘who are among the lowest paid workers in the UK’, the review acknowledges) is £204; reduced to £184, the review noted, due to an agreement with HM Treasury due to the SIA building up surpluses before 2020. According to the review, savings identified by the SIA ‘should enable the amount paid by the licence payer to remain as low as possible when the rebate scheme ends, with the ambition of not exceeding the current level payable’.
Under transparency, the review said that it’s ‘not clear on what basis resources from licence fee income or from ACS membership fees are used to fund enforcement work’. The SIA’s cases under investigation and ones going toward prosecution had risen sharply before the period of the review, between August 2023 and March 2024; so far in the 2020s, fewer than half of prosecutions have been for offences under the Private Security Industry Act 2001 (PSIA) that was the basis of the Authority. According to the review, ‘the SIA has not identified a clear policy decision underpinning its shift from pursuing almost exclusively PSIA offences’.
What they say
In a joint statement, Heather Baily, Chair of the SIA, and Michelle Russell, Chief Executive of the SIA, said they welcomed the publication. They said: “The SIA embraced the review with a collaborative, open, and transparent approach. We are pleased the review provides the necessary assurance to ministers and the public that the SIA is a well-run organisation doing good work.
“The focus of this review was efficiency, and the review confirms the SIA has challenged itself to increase efficiency to contain the cost of its operations.
“The review also confirms the SIA is best placed in its current form to deliver the licensing of regulated security roles and the regulation of private security.
“We are particularly pleased that the review acknowledges the work licensed security operatives do to protect the UK. The review encourages them to “continue to work with the SIA as an expert and authoritative regulator that is punching above its weight to encourage the highest standards in the profession.
“We seek and continue to benefit from the support and co-operation of those working in the private security industry and our many partners to provide effective regulation and pursue robustly those who choose not to comply.
“We will work with the Home Office and the devolved governments to implement the recommendations of this review.”
The Home Office carried out the review under the Conservative Government and before the Labour Government in September 2024 published the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill that is due to make the SIA the regulator and inspector of premises under Martyn’s Law, greatly increasing its work. You can read it at – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/security-industry-authority-public-body-review-2025.
Some background
The SIA was set up in the mid-2000s under the Private Security Industry Act 2001 (PSIA) as a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB), sponsored by the Home Office.
