SIR - On reading yet another batch of excellent Letters To The Editor in Security Management Today covering the 20 March deadline day for Security Industry Authority (SIA) licensing (March, April and May ), and several articles - including your own review of the Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) launch (‘Awards Ceremony honours first SIA Approved Contractors', News Special, SMT, May 2006, ) - I am writing to thank you for the superb coverage you have afforded to regulation and all the key issues surrounding it.

You have consistently offered many practitioners much space to express their views and highlight the problems they've faced leading up to the cut-off date by which private sector operatives had to be licensed.

There is no doubt in my mind that the comprehensive coverage in your journal of all the most important topics, many of them subsequently raised in the Letters To The Editor section - and in particular those concentrating on the logistics of licensing, which had been completely misjudged - eventually sank in at the top levels of the SIA.

Although the Regulator hadn't the common sense to extend the deadline and relieve the massive pressures self-imposed by its own dogmatic intransigence, the attitude emanating from 50 Broadway post-20 March was more understanding than it might have been had the problems raised in your various editorials not been aired.

At the ACS Awards Ceremony, the Regulator duly recognised the industry's achievements in its last-minute dash to reach the finishing tape on time, although there was a failure by many due to the log-jam of applications. Its chief executive, John Saunders, also lavished praise on his own members of staff for their efforts. However, it would have been a nice gesture if Mr Saunders could have apologised to us all for having misjudged the logistics of regulation.

Anyway, it's done now. While many will think it a waste of time and yet another layer of bureaucracy, I do not.

As long as we can sort out a better way of introducing new blood, regulation must be a good thing - most importantly as it will save us the ridiculous performance of checking every applicant through the police data bank.

Ray Redmore Managing Director Security 2000

Source

SMT