Regulatory Impact Assessment - Manned Guarding/ Keyholders

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 12:56 pm

THE SIA has published it's Regulatory Impact Assessment for Manned Guarding and Keyholders.
It does not seem that the allotted time for discussion between public disclosure of the documents existance and the end of the consultation period is very long, espeacially considering a number of days will be lost due to public holidays.
Your feedback on this document is very much needed as a matter of urgency.
As well as any feedback you might want to send directly to the Home Office, we are preparing our own response to reflect the views of our members.
The document can be found here;
http://www.the-sia.org.uk/pdf/RIA-for-SG-and-KH-Sectors.pdf

Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 12:48 pm

Well it seems either no one is interested or the RIA is accurate due to the lack of response from members.

As a result, I have prepared a personal response rather than one from the Guild which was sent to the Home Office today.

Forum Addict Joined: Apr 28, 2004 Posts: 122

damn, for some reason i thought i posted about this... Sad

what did you say then john?!

Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:15 pm

On reflection, perhaps I should not have sent this after a 12 hour shift and dubious mood LOL.

On page 4 par 1.4 It is stated quite clearly that “licensing requirements will depend on the type of work that is done rather than the title of your job”

I feel this can only be a good thing, however we do currently have a cross-over with licensed Door Supervisors being able to work as licensed Security Officers – the core skills needed for both these sectors are completely different so a more detailed clarification is needed.

On page 6 par 1.12
The transition period is far too short. The SIA experienced problems (and still are) with the Door Supervisors licensing roll-out and the PSIA Act prohibits unlicensed individuals from working without a license which would create a massive manpower shortage. Originally the PSIA allowed for this scenario with a clause that if the individual had applied for a licence that had not been issued yet they could still work as though they were licensed – bit of a gaping loophole that got closed.

On Page 6 par 1.14 The document refers to evidence of the criminal fraternity being employed by the security industry, hence the need for licensing.
I feel this is something of a misnomer in that there are more important sectors of the industry who need regulation and licensing to prevent use of insider knowledge, for example intruder alarm installers.

Page 10 par 3.7 There seems to be yet another cross-over of core competencies. This paragraph deal with Close Protection, the sector being defined as “security operatives employed under contract who establish and maintain a safe environment in which a specific individual can live and work…’ This could equally apply to the Manned Guarding sector, so a more detailed definition is required to clearly divide the sector core competencies.

Page 10 par 3.8 and 3.9 deals with CCTV PSS licence, stating that security operatives employed under contract would need a CCTV license. I feel the estimate of 7,000 individuals needing licenses is very conservative. The vast majority of manned guarding contracts (and increasingly retail guarding) rely heavily on CCTV equipment in their arsenal to fight crime. The majority of these systems will monitor perimeter and entrance area’s to the premises and thus overlook public area’s which, from my understanding, would require the individual operating the equipment to hold 2 licenses, one for manned guarding, the other for CCTV PSS.

Keyholder licensing.
I would agree that keyholder licensing is required, however, do we really need yet another separate license?
The whole issue if licensing for individual sectors is a non-starter any way if I is to be completed logically without undue financial strain or the poorly paid individuals employed within the security industry.

Despite much hype, licensing will NOT bring about an wage increase for the individuals concerned as 90% of the companies already tell their clients their staff have criminal records checks and the skills needed to do the job – so the client is not going to pay more for what is percieved as the same service.

Any way, back to licensing…
So if you have a security officer who operates as a mobile patrol officer, he will be dealing with keyholding requests, if he gets called to work on a site (which happens more often than it should) and that site uses a CCTV system which overlooks a public area he/she will need to have 3 separate licenses???? That’s £570 every 3 years – let us just hope he does not do any Door Supervision on his/her days off.

What the industry really needs is a tiered licensing system similar to the way in which the current vehicle license works with different ‘classes’ added to a basic license to operate.

We can now see for example a basic license (CRB check) would cost around £40 then each additional ‘class’ that was added could be around £80.

We now have an equation like this;

Basic license (CRB Check only) £40

Class ‘A’ (Manned Guarding) £80

Class ‘B’ (Keyholding) £80

The various ‘classes’ could be displayed on each licence just the same as your car license does.
This would make the cross-overs into different sectors much more manageable with just the additional core competences needing verification between sectors.

Page 13 para 4.6
Economics – The idea that licensing will drive up wages is laudable but unfortunately, quite laughable.
The industry is in its current state because clients do no want to pay for security – some clients do not have an option as they would have a hard time getting insurance cover otherwise but it would be quite simple for these to form their own ‘in-house’ security which would be exempt from licensing any way.
The only way to lower staff turnover will be to get the employers to provide decent benefits for their staff, such as company sick pay (as against statutory sick pay), pensions, better working conditions and to stop phoning their staff whilst off sick, on holiday or on rest pressuring them to go to work to cover contracts which they never have enough manpower to cover any way. And getting their pay right for some companies would be a huge benefit too.

Licensed companies/ individuals would NOT be able to charge more – there is no difference in the quality or type of service they are providing just because they are licensed so how can the client justify paying out more money for the same service? The industry has been lying to its clients for years regarding vetting and training standards so now it is going to bite them back.

Page 17 para 6.3 Equity and Fairness

The SIA has wasted a lot of money designing assessment systems for qualifications in respect of who the examiner is. Take for example SITO who allow individual companies to train and examine their staff for Part 1 exemption of the manned guarding licensing criteria – companies, because of their shortage of manpower (which is going to get worse with the introduction of licensing) train their staff in-house following the guidelines and rules set down by SITO. That seems fair enough you might think but the problem arises where the companies are also acting as the examiner – they are helping candidates to pass an exam by telling them the answers!
That completely negates the whole ‘increasing core competency skill sets’ vision of licensing in the first place and until training is restricted to colleges, universities or other establishments outside of the reach of the industry this will continue to happen, as it does to this very day! We are talking about the ‘leading’ companies here, not some small family business.

Page 18 para 6.4 Door Supervisor license extension

One single Door Supervisors license will allow an individual to work across 2 sectors – but this defeats the whole object of licensing and having the right core competencies to do the job. There is no way that even using the most of ones imagination that the core competencies match across these 2 sectors. Door Supervisors do not have to issue keys, make check-in-calls, patrol premises, make risk assessments, direct traffic, control vehicular access, stop and detain for theft – the list goes on…..

Page 20 para 9.9 Increasing standards will drive up wages

Sorry it is not going to happen. Clients will see no change in the way their service is being delivered and could never justify paying more for what is the essentially the same service. From my 20+ years of experience in the industry I would estimate at least 50 percent of contracts are won on price alone, with ‘added value’ coming in next where the client gets the security staff to sweep floors, replenish photocopier paper etc etc so they can reduce their own staffing levels by getting ‘security’ to undertake menial tasks.
The only way to drive up wages is to introduce a minimum wage for security personnel.
If the industry had not lied to its clients regarding their training standards, criminal record checks, vetting etc, they would never have been in the position now where they are either going to have to admit they lied or find some other excuse for raising the fee passed on to their clients. We are not talking about the rogue cowboy element here either, we are talking about the industry at large.

Apendix 7 lists communications from the SIA for security guarding licensing.
Most of these events were chargeable and outside of the financial reach of those employed in the industry – the security personnel.
Indeed, I would like to know how these events are actually advertised to the thousands of men and women employed within the industry. After all, it is these individuals who are going to be most affected by licensing.

As a non profit voluntary organisation who deal day in, day out with security personnel, we made the SIA aware we could advertise to the hundreds of men and women who visit our website every day and we have had no feedback from them whatsoever. Indeed they usually ignore our attempts at communication.

We have done what we can to make our website visitors aware of the direction of licensing etc but I am not ware of any attempt to canvass their views on the whole licensing issue, despite promises that they would be consulted.
When Perpetuity Research conducted their initial investigation of the industry on behalf of the SIA we had to contact them direct in order to put forward the views we had at that time from security personnel working within the UK.
Luckily we managed to put forward a strong case for the compulsory training of conflict management skills as part of the licensing criteria which has been included but I am certain that if the views of the security companies had been the only views listened too, the workforce of the industry would not have had that benefit to aid them in working in a safer environment.

Newbie Joined: Oct 31, 2003 Posts: 17

The lack of response to your first posting is probably due to confusion caused by the SIA, and lack of support from our employers whom seem to be burying their heads in the sand over the new licencing, we the employees seem to be stuck in the middle, I'm fairly confident I am not on my own in this. My employer after much nagging from me agreed to pay for my training and licence only to go back on there word a week before training was due to start, now saying they will pay for training but not licence. I have told them I am not prepared to do this as the time will come when they have to take it seriously so the training is now cancelled.

Please keep up the good work John, its only when looking on this site we know there is someone out there that knows what there talking about fighting for our rights. Thank you

Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 6:44 am

Thank you Cathy for your words of inspiration.
Yes, I think the SIA is over complicating things so we have something in common there and no matter what they did, it would still be a complicated affair but through my eyes I see no real structure to anything.
The licensable sectors seem to be crossing over more and more which means the core skills needed for those sectors are getting more and more blurred.
I'm not including CP in this as in my opinion it is a completely seperate, clearly defined sector - even though the SIA definition leaves a bit to be desired.

Newbie Joined: Nov 30, 2004 Posts: 8

Quote:

On reflection, perhaps I should not have sent this after a 12 hour shift and dubious mood

John, If that's what you sent after a 12 hour shift, I'd like to know what coffee you're drinking :supz:

Well done you.

Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:32 pm

If I remember correctly, Ionly had 3 hours sleep the day before but if you need a caffeine fix, the best stuff I have found is at Asda, in the coffee section - small red jar called 'Rocket Fuel' - it is ceratinly good stuff and I always have a cup before driving home to stop the eyelids from drooping.

If anyone has as response to the RIA they want to propose I still have time to include it in a 'Guild' response but I think the cut-off date is the 22nd

Newbie Joined: Nov 30, 2004 Posts: 8

Maybe we should have a whip round, and send a crate of 'Rocket Fuel' to the SIA with our compliments Laughing

Methinks they're gonna need it Confused

Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2005 10:13 pm

Even though the MOD appears to be currently exempt from SIA Accreditation and licensing, we are all getting free training through a Bristol college distance learning pack.
9 modules to complete and return and culminating in a multiple choice(guess) test.
Our regional training officer narranged the training for us basically to A.Get us ready in case the exemption is revoked / surrendered, B.As some smaller posts the mgs currently man may be uneconomical to run, some posts may transfer to private contracts therefore officers may choose to leave rather than transfer to other units and will then have SIA ready to ease their path to employment.
The MOD exemption seems to stem from the fact that our foundation course exceeds the SIA standard requirement as it currently stands.
We're also lucky in that we are basically another arm of the MOD Police and generally fall under their doctrine and some course instructors are also MOD Police.
I was trained by MOD Police, Royal Military Police redcaps and MGS instructors in equal doses.