The report famously concluded that there is no clearly defined or substantiated risk to public protection to be addressed, and that the SIA was unable to make a case which would justify extending its remit to include the licensing of in-house security officers.
In the original White Paper proposing the SIA and imposing the obligation to have licensing for security officers, in-house operatives were included. This was put into the Bill that went to Parliament. When it was going through Parliament, in-house officers were removed from the scheme. One can guess at the pressure applied to ensure the removal of such security officers from the legislation.
The sop was that there would be a triennial review – this is the first. The Hansard report (quoted in the SIA report) said that there would be a review “of all the arrangements” in three years’ time. There has not been such a review. There has been a review as to whether it can be demonstrated that there is a risk to the public from not extending regulation to in-house security officers. That is not the same thing at all.
Matters such as changes to the vetting requirements demanded of all employers have been ignored altogether. It is impossible to read this report as a genuine review of the position. It has all the hallmarks of a continuation of the influence of the pressure groups which led to in-house security being excluded in the first place.
The review is dressed up as a proper report with lots of pretty graphs and reporting much consultation and analysis. It is no such thing, and it contains much illogicality. To be frank, it appears to have been worked backwards from the desired conclusion.
Many companies aspire to high standards
The SIA report fails to take account of the fact that many security companies do aspire to high standards. There is an assertion that the reputation of the organisation employing in-house security officers is an important stimulus to high standards.
Superficially at least, the consultation for the report appears to have been pretty broad, but who was in the ‘Think Tanks’? How did they become a member of those Think Tanks? How were the one-to-one consultations arranged? All self-selected, one might surmise.
The response to the SIA’s consultation period from individuals was disappointing. There were very few, in fact, but understandably so given the cynicism about the process. Cynicism which, to the independent eye, would seem entirely justified.
Also relied upon was “desk-based research” with no explanation at all as to what this was. The “key Stakeholders” with whom there were one-to-one interviews are unnamed, and there is no way of knowing what was said. This is all far from transparent.
In addition, on page five of the review the SIA says that it considered whether there was any added value to be gained from further regulation. Conspicuous by its absence is any suggestion that fairness (the much quoted “level playing field”) comes into consideration at all. The responses to the questionnaires that were received are largely discounted as being opinions unsubstantiated by evidence. Yet the report contains conclusions that are, in reality, just opinions without evidential support at all.
Influential input from the retailers
The cost to one (unnamed) retailer of in-house officers being licensed is put at GB pound 5 million per annum. Plainly this retailer had some influential input. The argument – completely unsubstantiated by any detail at all – is that the big companies and organisations are reputable and train people to a good standard. They run the CRB checks, often renewing them every three years, and operate to a standard at least as good as the SIA would impose. Or so they say.
So, does the SIA opine that security companies are not reputable businesses who also run proper checks and train people?
The Regulator overlooks the simple point that the new regulations requiring all employers to establish the identity and Right to Work in the UK of their employees post date the introduction of the SIA. The SIA report fails to take account of the fact that many security companies do aspire to high standards.
The Regulator asserts that reputation of the organisation employing in-house security officers is an important stimulus to high standards. That said, the security officers are a very small part of a big retail operator/hospital/university. In contrast, security officers are the very raison d’etre of security companies. How much greater the necessity for security companies to make sure their employees are well-trained and checked than for organisations for whom security is merely (and literally) housekeeping?
The truth of the matter is that all the arguments (on page 10 of the SIA’s review) for not extending licensing to in-house security officers apply equally to removing licensing for security officersdirectly employed and then deployed by security companies.
Upside down way of thinking
The report says that the argument for regulation is reduced because in some cases the police will ask retailers to engage an SIA security officer, for example to cover alcohol sales. This is upside down. It shows precisely the reverse.
In-house security should be regulated by the SIA precisely because, on occasion, the police insist upon it. How much better it would be if all in-house security officers were SIA licensed? Then there would be no problems requiring the police to insist on an in-house security officer being replaced by a licenced individual. Or, to put it another way, the fact that the police have insisted on SIA licences for security personnel is substantiated evidence of a need to have in-house security officers licensed.
Yet it is set out in the report as evidence that there is no problem. The report seeks in vain to find a risk that might prompt the regulation of in-house security. It says that often there is a mix of in-house and outsourced (ie SIA licensed) security officers on any site. This completely ignores the obvious and inescapable conclusion that if there is a risk to the public in having non-licenced outsourced security officers, there must be precisely the same risk for in-house security officers doing parallel and identical duties.
If there is no risk to the public then the SIA review should be recommending the removal of the requirement for contracted security officers to be licenced. It’s as simple as that.
No differentiation on the part of the public
It’s not logically sustainable to say (at the same time) that the risk to the public requires security officers be licenced by the SIA, but that there is no risk to the public arising from non-licenced in-house security officers working alongside them – especially when the report states that the public does not differentiate between them.
There is opposition to the extension of SIA licensing on the basis of increased regulation and cost. Increased regulation is not a bad thing. Why should one security officer be regulated and the other not just because one is employed by the client for whom he or she works and the other by a specialist security company?
The visitor from Mars would say: “Shouldn’t it be the other way round, though?” The security company’s commercial life requires it to do a good job for its customers with good people. The retailer has every reason to cut corners to save cost. The increased cost is a fact. That is no reason not to regulate. It costs security companies to be regulated. That does not seem to be an argument to abandon regulation for them.
There is nothing objective in the report that justifies the conclusion it sets out. It starts from the point of view that regulation should be minimised, but fails completely to establish any rationale for treating security officers differently depending on who employs them. If it were genuinely reviewing matters – and bearing in mind the need for as little regulation as the risks justify – then, based on what it says (and does not say) about the change in statutory requirements on employers, it would be recommending one thing. That is, where in-house and contract security officers work together there should be no need for the contractor’s security officers to be licenced if they can show the same level of training and checking as the organisation employing the in-house officer.
While the report refers to the argument that there should be a “level playing field” this is the only reference to it, and nowhere does it deal with that argument. Although the phrase is a hackneyed cliche it’s still shorthand for a very powerful argument – Government regulation should be fair. If the report cannot deal with the fairness argument it must, in my view, be flawed by that omission.
A balanced report would set out both cases
The use of language and tense can be very revealing. If this had been a review conducted with an open mind it’s unlikely the heading on page eight would have been ‘Two sides to the argument?’. Why the interrogative unless the starting point was a conclusion that there should be no change?
Having identified some concerns, the report then ignores them. A balanced report would set out both cases, analyse them and only then would it conclude in favour of one, the other or a third outcome.
In my opinion, the way in which the questions and report are framed is to lead to a predetermined conclusion.
Paul Housego is a senior partner with Beers LLP Solicitors, an employment lawyer and an employment judge
This article is reproduced with the kind permission of Infologue.com
