17 Mar 2006

Britain’s police forces have been urged to embrace the private security industry in the fight against crime as the industry undergoes the biggest change in its history.

Andy Drane, Deputy Chief Executive of the Security Industry Authority (SIA), the government body tasked with regulating the private security industry, told a Reliance Security Services conference in Manchester yesterday that the changes promised a new future for law enforcement.

“The police now have no philosophical objections against the private security industry,” he said. “Their objection has always been over the quality of service, which is what the regulation aims to tackle.” 

"Under the planned changes, contracted security personnel must be licensed by the SIA from March 20.  Those operating without a licence from this date onwards will be breaking the law.  Regulation is being brought in with the support of most of the industry and the police as well", he said.  The twin aims were compulsory licensing of the necessary personnel and the introduction of a voluntary Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS).  "But, Mr Drane said, it was also hoped that a regulated security industry would link in better to the extended police community."

“The security industry estimates it will invest £400 million in regulation and we are lobbying very hard to get the industry involved in community crime plans.”

The resources of the private security industry were enormous, he added, indeed bigger than the police force itself.  As of this week, there were 198,000 people with a security qualification, with 82,000 people licensed to work in the industry.  By mid-2006, some 150,000+ would be licensed – “which is a massive resource, a lot of which is free,” said Mr Drane citing the example of the sharing of information between security services and the police since the July 7 terror attacks.  

The conference was attended by more than 100 business and police delegates from the North West.  Among the other speakers, David Smith, Regional Home Office Director for the North West, outlined the continuing roll-out of legislation designed to arm the police and other agencies with the effective means to combat crime.   

Paul Rice, Chief Executive of Manchester City Centre Management discussed the practicalities of using a mixture of different security-related resources to reduce crime in the city centre.  He stressed the importance of bringing together both private and public sector organisations to tackle criminal activity such as shop theft and anti-social behaviour.

For the police, Chief Superintendent Rick Naylor, President of the Police Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales, said the changing nature of crime underlined the necessity for change in the way society reacted.  He welcomed the move to regulate the private security industry as a positive step in the creation of the wider police family. 

Reliance Security Services is an established market leader in the provision of total security solutions including manned and electronic security, mobile response services and remote and electronic monitoring.  The company employs over 10,000 people from a network of offices throughout the UK.