The necessary arrangements to allow the SIA to start accepting business licence applications in April 2014 are not yet in place, and the ‘open for business’ date is postponed, the Security Industry Authority (SIA) has reported.
This development, that will throw companies’ timetables for getting ready for licensing into confusion, came after a February 27 meeting of the SIA’s Strategic Consultative Group. There Home Office officials gave an update on the timetable for introducing business licensing. That group’s where private security and SIA meets the Home Office, Scottish Government, Department of Justice Northern Ireland, security training sector, parliament, and other interested parties.
According to the Home Office it remains ‘committed’ to introducing business licensing and will announce a revised business licensing timetable ‘as soon as possible’.
This does not mean the Government is putting business licences back or off altogether, as the date when it’ll be the law for door companies and contract guarding and CCTV monitoring businesses to be badged remains: April 6, 2015.
This just means that there’ll be less time for the industry to be able to apply, and get badged. The Home Office did not say how long the bedding-in time for business licences will now be; it only said that the industry would be given at least three months’ notice of the ‘open for business’ date. And whatever the revised dates are, they will allow at least six months between the ‘open for business’ date and the legal requirement date. That has given the authorities about three months’ leeway; they could leave it until about midsummer to set an autumn date for the start of ‘open for business’.
