Updates to SIA licensing criteria scheduled for 1 December

The SIA is set to expand the list of criminal offences it considers relevant in its licensing decisions. The updated list will include a wider range of offences that affect whether someone is considered ‘fit and proper’ to hold a licence, such as modern slavery, people trafficking and upskirting.

The SIA will also be updating its criminality criteria. There will be further tightening of the rules around refusing a licence where an applicant has any criminal record that includes a sexual offence, child abuse or neglect offence or a prison sentence of more than 48 months. The SIA already affords careful consideration to applications involving these offences and is proposing to refuse all such applications in future unless the applicant can convince the SIA that they are not a public protection risk.

There’s going to be a tougher approach towards custodial sentences of more than 12 months where additional checks and mitigation will be required to demonstrate that the applicant is fit and proper to hold a licence.

Applicants who’ve lived overseas for six or more continuous months in the last ten years must provide an overseas criminal record check when they apply for an SIA licence. At present, this requirement only covers the last five years. The change brings the SIA’s rules more into line with the criminality checks required for UK visas where someone will be working in education, health or social care.

Also part of the changes is making clearer the broad range of other information that the SIA may consider when deciding whether someone is ‘fit and proper’ to hold a licence (for example, for domestic violence orders or being subject to misconduct or other disciplinary proceedings).

As referenced, the new criteria will be applied to all licence applications from 1 December this year.

Licence criteria checks 

All applicants for an SIA licence should check the licensing criteria to see if they are likely to be eligible for a licence before they begin the application process. This includes licence holders applying to renew their licence.

Further guidance and information will be provided to licence holders and applicants before the new criteria take effect, including on the SIA website.

The SIA will be introducing the new criteria following a wide-reaching public consultation process on the proposed changes that ran between March and May and received upwards of 3,300 responses. The results of the consultation highlighted strong support for the proposals among SIA licence holders and private security businesses.

These results were presented to Dan Jarvis MBE (Minister for Security), who proceeded to announce the changes to the SIA’s criteria on 1 October when speaking at the Nineteen Group-organised International Security Expo in London.

Tim Archer, director of licensing and standards at the SIA, explained: “The SIA’s current robust licensing processes help to ensure public trust and confidence in the private security industry. The changes will further strengthen these processes and support our drive to improve standards across the industry.”

*Further information is available by accessing the findings of the consultation and additional detail concerning the planned changes