Something we don’t know, perhaps?

So my assertion that the broad public and media perception of security guarding is one of “bored, reluctant people doing nothing for long periods of time” (‘Sledgehammer to crack a nut?’, Letters To The Editor, SMT, April 2006) is wrong, then?

Those officers only ‘appear’ bored because they have been “successful in their endeavours”. They have deterred all there is to deter, and secured all there is to secure. They are victims of their own success, it would seem!

Or it may be the case that uncaring clients or inadequate management have failed to ensure that they have “completed their quota of tasks for the day”. Thanks, Nick. I’d never have thought of that one!

While I cannot even begin to recognise Nick’s rose-tinted vision of the security business, or share in his peculiarly jaundiced view of the police service, I find myself broadly in agreement with his opinions relating to the Security Industry Authority (SIA) “lacks credibility”... “disorganised”... “poorly managed”.

Likewise, I can identify with some of the other comments in your October edition that, collectively, one might view as amounting to a broad industry condemnation of the Regulator.

For example, Paul Ritchie’s tales of “cowboys” winning contracts from “local Government and educational establishments” using “bogus ISO 9001:2000” accreditations (‘The Cowboys need to be captured… Now!’, Letters To The Editor, SMT, October 2006). Nothing new there.

Then there’s the perversity of the SIA’s policy of being “proud that it doesn’t have any industry practitioners on its Board or within the management team”.

Meantime, Nick Evans’ Opinion article (‘Regulation: has it all been worthwhile?’, SMT, October 2006,) reaches resoundingly negative conclusions, highlighting the failure to achieve promised “dramatic reductions in labour churn”.

Indeed, the Regulator is hardly leading by example given the revolving door that appears to have been attached to the chairman’s office. Right from the start it was clear even to a partially-sighted man on a galloping horse but sadly not the Regulator that labour churn is the critical issue above all others.

Many holders of the first licences to be issued will by now have departed the industry, just as those officers deployed under Licence Dispensation Notices in itself a rather strange concept, but that’s another story will be long gone by the time their applications are processed and licences issued. Thus no operator will ever deploy nor any end user ever enjoy a 100% licensed security workforce.

Dare I suggest that your excellent Four Issues, One Voice Campaign would be better directed at one issue?

In other words, a fundamental rethink and restructuring of the role and objectives of the SIA, leading to the organisation becoming a true industry Regulator that grants operating licences to companies rather than pursuing the unattainable objective of licensing every individual?

John King Security Consultant Bromley