At the annual Security Industry Authority conference on November 1, Baroness Henig ranged over her near six years at the helm of the regulator in what may prove to be her last speech to a private security audience as chairman of the SIA, before she steps down in January after six years, as announced the day before the event.
She recalled the first SIA conference she attended, at Leicester. “In 2007, in front of what I can best describe as a sceptical and quite critical audience, I promised that the SIA would ‘up its game’, would provide a better, more efficient and cost-effective service, and would listen more carefully to what the industry was telling us. Since that time, we have worked to improve relations with the leading industry bodies, and have developed a range of networks with large and small companies across the private security industry, and with door supervisors, to enable us to exchange views and to stay in close contact.”
The SIA chair said: “Some things have not changed since 2007. One of the hot topics at that first conference was training malpractice and there was also the issue of front line security guards whose grasp of the English language was poor but who still passed the training course. These issues are with us still, we are working vigorously to combat them, and Tony Holyland will talk more about what we are doing on training malpractice …” That said, she spoke of ‘enormous improvements in our service to you and in our financial performance’.
The Labour peer recalled the ‘computer malfunction in late 2007’, the right to work affair in 2008, and the so-called bonfire of the quangos when the Lib Dem-Conservative Coalition came in, in 2010.
Her review of recent years took in private investigators (PIs). She said: “I have been firmly convinced since 2007 that private investigators should be subject to our licensing regime, and by the end of 2009, this had been agreed in principle by ministers and by the Home Office, and work began to map out a feasible timetable to enable this to happen. But then in May 2010 the new Coalition government put this work on hold – perhaps not surprising, since, although we didn’t know it at the time, we were being lined up for abolition.” As she added, revelations about phone hacking emerged, and the Leveson enquiry was set up; and now the regulation of PIs is back on the agenda: “I very much hope, on the grounds of public protection, licensing of private investigators will go ahead, and the SIA is certainly ready to work with the Home Office and a supportive industry to bring this about as soon as feasibly practicable.”
As for the changes to the SIA regime, the subject of most of the new Home Office minister Lord Taylor’ speech, Henig said that the Coalition timetable ‘has now slipped badly’. She suggested the transition from the current to the new regime would be ‘a very long transition indeed’; she suggested there was no prospect of primary legislation being introduced before 2014 at the earliest, and business licensing not introduced until late 2014 or 2015 at the earliest.
She chose to end on an upbeat note, touching on the London Olympics: “Some particular problems apart, it was a good Games for private security – everything went off without a hitch, and large numbers of young people gained experience of working in the sector and hopefully will choose to stay in it.” She saw positives to take forward to the Commonwealth Games in 2014. Standards have to improve, she said; she hoped for a legacy from the Games, as security people were still working ‘very long hours for minimum wages’, and ‘too many contracts are still secured on the basis of security being a commodity sold on cheap cost and cheap labour’.
Welcome developments have included the drawing up of the Register of Chartered Security Professionals by the Worshipful Company of Security Professionals and the Security Institute, and the Chartered Security Professional certification scheme. “The industry’s voice has been growing louder and more unified, and I have been delighted to assist in this process.”
http://www.sia.homeoffice.gov.uk/Pages/about-stakeholder-conference.aspx
