As reported on Info4Security last Friday, this year’s SIA Stakeholder Conference opened with a speech from Lord Taylor of Holbeach, the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Criminal Information with responsibility for the Regulator.
Lord Taylor said: “The Home Office and the SIA are working closely together to deliver a business regulation regime”.
His speech was followed by an address from the SIA chairman Baroness Ruth Henig, who announced that she is to stand down from office in the New Year.
Baroness Henig spoke of the “enormous improvements” the SIA has made to its financial performance and in its service to customers since she joined the organisation in 2007.
Ongoing improvements at the Regulator
Stephen McCormick, the SIA’s director of service delivery, then spoke about the ongoing improvements the SIA is making to the way in which it works. McCormick explained how these changes will enable the Regulator to deliver a faster, more accurate, simpler and cheaper service.
McCormick asserted that, in 2009, fewer than 5% of licence applications were processed within a week of receipt: that figure now stands at 25%. This is partly because one in every five applications isn’t submitted on paper. In fact, between 1 April and 31 October the SIA processed 14,000 applications through the telephone service.
The Regulator’s director of service delivery went on to identify several new initiatives that will build on these successes, such as electronic address checking and an online renewals service.
John Montague, the SIA’s assistant director of compliance and investigation, then outlined successful prosecutions and multi-agency initiatives carried out over the last 12 months in a presentation entitled ‘Effective Enforcement’.
In it, Montague outlined the role of the Compliance and Investigations Team, outlining what they do and how they do it. He explained that the team is primarily directed in its activity by the intelligence it receives, though it sometimes conducts random checks to test compliance levels.
In the 2011-2012 financial year, the Compliance and Investigations Team was responsible for 445 compliance cases, issued 373 warnings and 43 improvement notices and took 57 cases forward to prosecution.
Security for London 2012: lessons learned
As head of the Olympic Protect programme at the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, Chris Jones spoke about security at the 2012 Olympic Games and the lessons learned.
He said that integration between security and the wider Games was a key challenge, and that the level of security that was put into place had to be proportionate to the risks involved.
The overall strategy was based on existing counter-terrorism programmes, with multiple agencies working together to share information.
Mike Bluestone CSyP, chairman of the Security Institute, gave a presentation entitled: Professionalisation of the Security Sector… The Reality. Here, Mike set out a view of what needs to happen in order for private security personnel to be seen as professionals.
Bluestone explained that The Security Institute promotes personal development through participation and learning, giving the example of the Diploma in Security Management which is awarded by Edexcel. He then went on to discuss the excellent and groundbreaking Register of Chartered Security Professionals.
Training malpractice: what’s the present situation?
Tony Holyland, the SIA’s competency development manager, then spoke about training malpractice.
Holyland explained that, in the previous six-month period, the various awarding bodies offering SIA licence-linked qualifications had issued 65,000 qualifications. There were only 45 allegations of malpractice within the same timeframe.
Training malpractice isn’t rife, then, but it does occur.
Holyland also explained that the SIA is not a qualifications regulator, but that it can still have a part to play in combating training malpractice. He referred to ‘Operation Nevada’, in which the SIA worked with awarding body OfQual, London’s Metropolitan Police Service and the UKBA in a joint operation that resulted in a number of training providers being shut down.
Panel discussion involving SIA Board members
Several members of the SIA Board – among them Linda Sharpe – then took part in a lively and topical debate facilitated by Jeff Little, the NSI’s CEO.
Other participants included Eddie Weiss, Robin Dahlberg and the SIA’s CEO Bill Butler.
Understandably, many of the questions were focused on business licensing. The panel members confirmed that business licensing will be a ‘fit and proper’ test only: unlike the Approved Contractor Scheme, it will not tell prospective buyers how competent the company is as a security supplier. This is why a hallmarked accreditation scheme will also be maintained.
Bill Butler commented that the SIA needs to find a balance that enables effective regulation but which doesn’t over-burden small businesses with too much regulation. Butler advocates a risk-based approach, and said that the impact of a small business going wrong was less than that of a large business going wrong.
The panel members also explained that one of the objectives for business licensing will be to prevent companies from avoiding their tax and National Insurance liabilities. Bill Butler stated: “The first thing people will notice about business licensing is that we will be working with HMRC”. The SIA’s CEO also suggested that business licensing would require companies to take out an appropriate level of insurance.
The panel members were asked whether there was any way in which the SIA could help increase the wages of private sector security workers – for example, by setting a minimum wage for the industry? In response, Robin Dahlberg was very clear that the SIA cannot set a minimum wage – that process must be done by Parliament.
In his closing remarks at the end of conference, Bill Butler said that real progress had been made and encouraged the industry to “pick up the challenge” as it moves towards a new regulatory regime.
