SIA announced in a blog published today, that the Manchester Arena Inquiry’s recommendations addressed to them were taken into account and updates were provided to the Inquiry regarding SIA’s work on the two monitored recommendations made by the Inquiry.
The Manchester Arena Inquiry was conducted following the Manchester Arena Terrorist Attack in 2017, which led to the death of 22 people and left thousands injured, with the purpose of examining the events leading up to the attack as well as identifying missed opportunities to prevent to attack and shortcomings of all responsible parties.
The Inquiry offered various recommendations to further improve public security, and some of these were addressed specifically to SIA.
These monitored recommendations (MRs) were:
“MR7 – The requirement that only those monitoring CCTV under a contract for services need to hold an SIA licence should be reviewed;
“MR8 – Consideration should be given to whether contractors who carried security services should be required to be licensed.”
SIA furthering the Inquiry’s recommendations
Paul Fullwood, SIA Director of Inspections & Enforcement, explained that they have been working closely with the Home Office to consider possible options to address these recommendations over the last 18 months and said: “From the perspective of the SIA, our professional assessment is that despite the best efforts of many, we have gaps in our existing regulatory powers which the proposals would seek to address. We have sought to address this in support of both public protection and working in partnership to raise standards across the private security industry.”
Fullwood recorded that SIA’s proposals submitted to the Inquiry go further than the recommendations made by the Manchester Attack Inquiry and include the following:
– Individual SIA licensing for in-house security should be extended to both operators of CCTV/public surveillance and in-house security guards; and
– The licensing of private security contractors and labour providers be introduced.
Fullwood stated: “There is often a misassumption that we (SIA) can introduce these changes immediately; we can’t! We operate within the powers given to us under the Private Security Industry Act. Any changes to this legislation require the agreement of the Home Office, Ministers, and Parliament. The matter is now with Home Office officials, and ultimately Ministers for consideration and decision on whether to accept the proposals or not. We await to hear the outcome.”
A more visible and proactive SIA
Fullwood recorded that they have also been developing many other areas which can be changed within the SIA to further support public protection:
“We have revised our Compliance, Enforcement & Supervision Strategy with our vision to be far more visible and proactive across the private security industry. We have increased our Inspection & Enforcement Resources (at no increase of the license fee) 50 plus operatives to over 100 operatives (Intelligence, Inspections and Criminal Investigations) who are all being upskilled to national investigative & intelligence standards (PIP/IPP);
“We have also submitted to the Home Office several business cases to improve our current PSIA powers (alongside MR7 & MR8) which will assist with information sharing, investigative activity, and money laundering legislation in support of our regulatory responsibility.”
Fullwood stated: “Alongside the introduction of ‘Martyn’s Law’ we feel these proposals will bolster public safety by further professionalising the private security industry and address several shortfalls that we know many professionals would like addressed.”
SIA’s works in numbers
SIA has 400,000 SIA licensed operatives across UK, as such their inspections/operations have to be targeted & intelligence led based on threat, risk, and harm. SIA’s works year to date in numbers are as follows:
– 6,000 individual licence checks, more than a 200% increase on the previous year;
– Inspection visits to 915 separate sites and checks on operatives from 830 separate security providers;
– 880 compliance investigation cases opened based on intelligence and concern reports;
– Nearly 100 individual offences detected relating to unlicensed operatives and other PSIA 2001 offences;
– 100 announced visits made to training providers and 103 action plans generated, which include an average of 4 improvement points.
