Monitoring News
Every month our Managing Director, Steve Kimber, fills us in on the latest monitoring news.
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Connections
April 2007
Hello Again,
Recently I attended as Chairman of the Fire & Security Association, the House of Commons, to participate in the InFIRes annual seminar and a splendid day it was indeed. The day was centred around debates on various topics, one of which was the Security Industry Authority (SIA).
I took the opportunity to question Hazel Banks the Director of Strategic Development for the SIA about the forthcoming Risk Impact Assessment (RIA) for Security Consultants in the electronic security systems sector.
Her presentation to the assembled representatives of industry covered amongst other topics an acknowledgement that the CCTV licensing issue was not handled particularly well by the SIA. Furthermore, if it was considered that Security Consultants did not pose a threat to the public, then the SIA did not want to impose regulation where it is unnecessary, therefore a RIA may not be carried out.
I commented that based on the information given to the industry on CCTV licensing her statement was of cool comfort and that I suspected that at some point a RIA would be carried out to determine if Security Consultants needed licensing.
I asked against a backdrop of 35 years of successful self regulation whether the SIA would, whilst carrying out a RIA, take into consideration advice given by the DTI and supported by the Small Business Council. I pointed out that the SIA was aware of government thinking in that any RIA should also include a Small Firms Impact Test (SFIT) and that the SIA failed to do this during the manned guarding RIA.
The response was encouraging, Hazel stated that if Security Consultants were deemed to warrant a RIA then she gave her personal undertaking that a SFIT would be carried out. This is encouraging because by DTI definition our industry, by average size of company, falls within the micro business status and thereby outside any logical reason for being lumbered with disproportionate and increasing licensing costs, or the costs of the self perpetuating Approved Contractors Scheme.
The self regulated security systems sector, which cannot do business without the let of the insurance industry and ACPO, (both of which are involved in the self regulatory system that has been in place for 35 years) will continue to be vociferous about a “no need” for licensing, as represented through the Fire & Security Association.
Bye for now,
Steve