On Tuesday 12 September Sarah Dines, Minister of State for Safeguarding, accompanied our compliance team members and City of London Police on an inspection across six locations in the square mile.
The Minister, Sarah Dines, and our Chair, Heather Baily met and spoke with frontline security operatives, including door supervisors and security guards. The Minister was keen to understand the role and the experiences of licence holders as well as speak with them about public safety.
Our Investigations Officer, Kirsty Tagg shared with the Minister our ongoing work to tackle violence against women and girls in partnership with local boroughs and the police. She also highlighted the vital training that operatives receive on recognising indicators of abuse and their duty of care to protect vulnerable people.
The visits provided an opportunity for the security operatives to speak with the Minister and our Chair, and an opportunity for the Minister to observe our role in enforcing standards within the private security industry.
The visits allowed us to meet security operatives with a wide range of experience of working in the private security industry. A couple of the operatives had been in role for over ten years, with one holding 18 years of service at the same venue. We also met with an operative who had only just recently received their first licence.
One of the head door supervisors detailed that they had recently turned away a security operative, with what they thought may have been a fake licence.
Using ultraviolet light, they had been unable to detect a lack of security features that should have been present on the individual’s licence card.
We discussed the issue of counterfeited licences with the Minister and explained the ways in which we are tackling this issue by encouraging companies to undertake checks.
The inspection was completed with a short debrief at the end of the night.
It was a valuable exercise to introduce the Minister to the work we do out in the field, learn about the experiences of the SIA licence holders, and discuss some of the challenges we can encounter in our work.
Our thanks go to Sarah Dines, her team, the City of London Police and to all who took part for their continued commitment to working with us.
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