Sir – As I am sure you will be aware, the Security Industry Authority (SIA) has been experiencing difficulties of late. The time taken to process licence applications and renewals has been well in excess of the target times. Documents have been held for far too long before being returned, with a few mislaid or even lost. It has also been difficult for people to access our Contact Centre.
This state of affairs is far from ideal, and I apologise to businesses and individuals alike for the frustration they must have felt during recent weeks. The purpose of this communication is to explain what went wrong, what we have been doing to put it right and what the overall prognosis looks like.
Since November last year, there has been increased criticism of the SIA’s performance – in particular with regard to the speed of licensing and the Contact Centre. It’s not universally known that a substantial part of the licensing process – together with the Contact Centre and document handling – are contracted out to a managed service provider.
A decision was taken some time ago to renegotiate the contract, to bring in a new partnership arrangement and redesign the IT systems around new, streamlined processes. Under the new project – designated Managed Service Provider 2 (MSP2) – our document handling and Call Centres in Bournemouth and Newcastle would close and be replaced by a single centre in Liverpool.
Although the early implementation of MSP2 looked encouraging, a delay in the delivery of some functionality last November and December gave rise to a backlog of cases. Importantly, among the capabilities delayed were the Application Tracker and the online application facility.
Two further factors emerged. First, there was the postal strike. The national strike was far less of an issue than the local wildcat strikes that followed in Liverpool, as both the SIA’s document handling centre and the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) are based there. The industrial action didn’t last long, but led to a further build-up of applications and delays.
Second, there was the right to work exercise. As you may be aware, the SIA sent out over 10,000 letters just before Christmas to individuals who didn’t appear – from checks conducted in relation to the Border and Immigration Agency’s records – to have the right to work in the UK.
All three factors – the late delivery of MSP2, the postal strike and the right to work issue – gave rise to a huge number of calls, letters, faxes and e-mails to the Contact Centre which then became overloaded.
The foregoing is an explanation of what caused the present difficulties. It is in no sense offered as an excuse.
A number of things have been done to mitigate the situation. There have been further deliveries of MSP2 functionality, such as the Application Tracker. Additional Contact Centre resources have been deployed, with weekend and unsocial hours working to tackle the backlogs. Several of the administrative glitches to do with the redirection of mail between Newcastle and Liverpool have been resolved. We’ve also introduced manual ‘workarounds’ to navigate some of the problems.
We are still waiting for some deliverables, most importantly the online application facility. A small number of applications made in November and December – perhaps a few hundred – that were particularly badly caught up in the situation outlined are only just being decided. However, there’s now a reasonably robust and efficient process in place, and the backlog of applications waiting to be scanned on to the system has been dealt with.
It will be some time before the load on the Contact Centre eases. Any application – including a renewal – will be scanned onto the system within a day or two of receipt, will show on the Application Tracker at that point, the supporting documentation will be returned within a few days and it will move forward.
I apologise again for the frustration and inconvenience that you have experienced in recent weeks. We have made a good deal of progress behind the scenes to tackle the problems we’ve been facing, and I’m fully confident you’ll begin to see a marked improvement in the speed of licensing, in our Contact Centre’s performance and in our customer care generally.