Make sure it’s right next time, please…

As you rightly pointed out in last month’s Security Management Today (News Update, p7), this represents an increase of 30%. An increase endorsed by The Home Office subject to a Section 102 Order being granted in due course.

How many of the businesses in our sector, large or small, would be able to command a 30% increase in fees in three years? None, I would suggest to you.

And what is the basis for this increase? The SIA must be self-funding. A laudable aim, and indeed one set out in the original Private Security Industry Act 2001. In addition, the SIA – on the admission of acting chief executive Andy Drane in your Letters To The Editor Section (‘SIA licence fee set to increase: updated RIA by the Home Office’, SMT, February 2007, pp16-19) – admits that it failed to size and scale-up the industry correctly.

It’s well known that consultants were employed to carry out these calculations on the Regulator’s behalf. I would sincerely hope that the Regulator is now in consultation with the organisation concerned about the accuracy of its information and the fees that were charged? If it isn’t, it should be!

The most important issue is this... Who is responsible for ensuring that our industry is obtaining the best value for money from its Regulator – the National Audit Office?

In any normal business we could expect to see inflationary rises in prices, but we would have to cut our cloth – in other words staff and costs – to meet the target. Presumably, with the rump of the industry now licensed – and only the smaller sectors like investigators and security consultants to follow – the main bulk of the Regulator’s income is going to arise from licence renewals which must be quantifiable?

Where in reality the bulk of the work has been completed and is on record, surely the only fundamental task to be finished and finalised is an update on the Criminal Records Bureau check for the three years since the original licence was issued?

I am certain the Regulator will believe this to be a simplistic approach to the issue, but – and thinking matters through in a logical fashion – there should be a cut in SIA staff and in the contractors’ staff and costs. Going forward, the emphasis should be on intelligence and enforcement.

Then there is the not-so-insignificant matter of Scotland to be dealt with... Following devolution, I fully presume this will be a self-funding exercise, and that a separate business plan has been agreed with the Scottish Parliament ensuring that no additional costs are incurred south of the border at any time?

For the sake of the future for this industry, we need reassurances from the Regulator that if mistakes were made at the beginning they have now been rectified.

Any future increases in the cost of a Government-supported licence must be no more than inflationary. Hopefully, productivity gains might even allow the fee to stand still or even decrease once every sector is fully-licensed.

Nigel Churton, Vice-Chairman, Control Risks