Training

BBC on SIA licence training cheating

by Mark Rowe

Cheating and fraud by trainers giving courses towards Security Industry Authority licences in London was uncovered by the BBC and aired on the Six O’Clock News on Monday, March 24 – by coincidence, the evening before last night’s Call Security documentary on BBC1, sympathetic to the industry.

The BBC showed secret filming of a test for the bodyguard qualification. The candidate was shown how to copy answers to pass the classroom exam. One of the two students in the room was an undercover BBC London reporter. The trainee was also told to lie about his background on forms. The trainee did not have to do training at all: “No, only the paperwork.” With such fraudulently-obtained qualifications, the BBC reporter could get offers of security work. The Labour MP and chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz said that he was horrified and described it as ‘a mjaor scandal in Britain’s security industry’. In a statement the SIA said that it took allegations of training malpractice seriously and would take action immediately against the licenced individual concerned, to protect public safety. After the full programme was aired in London, in the Inside Out series, industry trade bodies stressed that the fraud was as much against the exam awarding body – Industry Qualifications, IQ. Raymond Clarke, Chief Executive of IQ, said: “We are deeply disappointed that an IQ centre appears to have been involved in malpractice. Despite requesting details of the evidence for some four weeks now from the BBC, which would have enabled IQ to conduct its own enquiry, our first viewing of the evidence was on the BBC programme this evening. On face value, the evidence would appear to be damning, but we need to move very quickly to confirm the allegations and identify the scale of the problem. We will review our practices in light of the BBC footage and as more details emerge, to determine whether different approaches might have identified the issue at an earlier stage.”

As reported in the programme, IQ stressed its zero tolerance approach to malpractice and fraud. IQ made the point that it made three external verification visits to one of the two training centres named by the BBC in the past 12 months; which did not unearth malpractice. Richard Moore, Commercial Director at industry sector skills body, Skills for Security, adds: “As the sector skills body for the private security industry, Skills for Security is committed to working with the industry to develop an accredited training provider programme as a response to demand from industry. It is hoped that this will provide additional safeguards against malpractice.”

The GMB union described itself as shocked. Jude Brimble, GMB National Officer for the security industry, made the point that training-for-cash undermined the sector’s professionalism. He said: “GMB has long campaigned for rogue operators and practices to be driven out of the security industry, and since the inception of licensing and regulation much progress has been made on this front.”

Comment

It was no accident that the BBC London findings of short cuts to training qualifications towards SIA licences, and fraud against the exam awarding bodies, was in an exam for close protection – by far the most specialised and hence least taken route to an SIA badge. First, as the proper course takes longer and hence costs more, the potential profit to the fraudster and the gain to the person getting the qualification fraudulently is greater. Second, as fewer people take the exam – in ones and twos – it’s simpler to do the fraud and less likely that someone will blow the whistle.

Exams for security workplaces are invigilated and run no differently to the exams we all took aged 16 at school. We, society trust that the person in charge of the examination, typically the person who gave the course, will not coach his students or help them cheat (whether they have asked for help or not). In a school, in a room where scores of youths are taking the exam, it’s too risky for a trainer to do a fraud; someone might blow the whistle. That unspoken but powerful block on fraud is weaker when a few people at a time are taking SIA courses. As the fraudulent training centre can fill in all the paperwork correctly, to make it seem as though the trainees did the course fully, the exam awarding body is none the wiser, and cannot spot fraud unless tipped off, or coming across the fraud on an unannounced visit, or if it insists on CCTV in every classroom. While then the security industry and the training sector can with reason feel they are victims, we can ask whether the links in the training chain – the exam awarding bodies, and the SIA – have really ever wanted to get to the bottom of this. What is the incentive for someone to report wrong-doing while they have taken an exam, if they fear their badge too will be made void, and they lose the hundreds of pounds they have invested in the course, and risk losing their good name? And as with any fraud we simply cannot say how much of this is going on.

Related News

  • Training

    CyberScotland Week 2021

    by Mark Rowe

    Scotland’s annual week-long festival of events on cyber awareness, careers, and innovation in cyber security, is to return in 2021. CyberScotland Week…

  • Training

    Terror search launch

    by Mark Rowe

    OPTIMA Defence & Security has launched OPTIMA Group, a number of divisions coming together to provide Counter-IED (C-IED) and Search consultancy, trials…

Newsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay on top of security news and events.

© 2024 Professional Security Magazine. All rights reserved.

Website by MSEC Marketing