The chair of the regulator the SIA has admitted that not bringing in business licensing – as should have happened by now – is ‘disappointing and frustrating’.
Elizabeth France, pictured, was speaking at the Security Industry Authority’s annual conference in London in mid-October. She said: “We at the SIA recognise the expenditure and effort the industry has put towards preparing for business licensing, and of course, the ongoing costs of continuing uncertainty.” To recap, the Coalition Government had set April 2015 for the deadline when security businesses had to become SIA-licensed, as individual contract guards, door staff and public space contract CCTV operators are. Applications were supposed to be taken from April 2014 with six months before the April 2015 deadline to comply. However in public France and the regulator’s outgoing chief exec Bill Butler have pointed to the Department for Business for blocking the licensing.
In her speech to the event, Elizabeth France made plain that the SIA is waiting for an end to the political delay that’s not the SIA’s fault: “We have done everything we can to prepare for business licensing, the SIA and industry stand ready for business licensing, as and when we have the legislation.”
She gave no timetable for when the Home Office will bring forward law to let the SIA bring in business licensing. As for the SIA’s Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) – which has uncertain status, if and when business licensing comes in – Elizabeth France said that the total of approved contractors stands at 784. She covered the regulator’s work processing applications – that you now apply online and face to face service at the Post Office means application form rejections are now down from 40pc to fewer than 10pc, she said. On the SIA’s enforcing of the law, she reported ‘a firm 98pc compliance rate’. She spoke also of work against organised crime in the private security sector: “We have robust and targeted enforcement and successful prosecutions, focused on businesses that are breaking the law.”
To read her speech in full and other speakers at the event, visit the SIA website – http://www.sia.homeoffice.gov.uk/Pages/about-stakeholder-conference.aspx.
