Sledgehammer approach is ill thought out

A good example of unnecessary regulation that has had a negative effect on bona-fide businesses is the Government's well meaning but inept attempt to regulate the Security Guarding Sector. As usual they have gone for the sledgehammer approach, sweeping up all legitimate companies in the same bag as the less scrupulous operations they are trying to target. The net effect is therefore to penalise professionally run law abiding companies whilst many fringe outfits continue to avoid compliance and the associated costs.

You may well be wondering why an NSI Gold Fire & Security Alarm Company such as ours would be concerned about this. We operate a key holding service with our existing 24 hour callout engineers attending site to reset customer's alarms.

This is a niche market particularly popular with second home owners in our area. There have never been any problems with what we are doing and our customers have always appreciated (and paid for) the service.

We specifically state in our contract that we are not security guards and if there is any sign of anything untoward our engineers are instructed to back off and call the police.

We are now informed that the SIA requires all key holders (including office staff) to be licensed at a cost of £190 each for three years. This despite the fact that they are already security screened in accordance with BS7858 as well as being regularly audited by the NSI Inspector.

How does this help us run our business? Answer: It doesn't! But it gets worse, much worse. We "may" also be required to get all of our "front line" staff to attend a four-day training course.

How does this help them or us? Answer: It doesn't! Contacting the SIA for advice is more difficult than getting through to George W Bush at The White House. You can listen to an answer phone which tells you to look on their website which tells you to email them which results in them sending back an excerpt from their website which you have already read. This may not be an important issue to the SIA who shelter behind their website but is critical to a small alarm company like us who have to rely on the revenue from this service to continue to grow.

I would love to hear from any other installers who are similarly affected by this ill thought out piece of legislation.

End of rant!

Philip King,

Barnhams Electrical Company Limited

t/as Kings & Barnhams Security
3 George Edwards Road
Fakenham
Norfolk NR21 8NL

security@electrical-services.com

(Tel 01328 863254)