Ive had a response...

After emailing my local MP around 5 weeks ago, I have had a reply in the form of an official letter from her through the House of Commons, which states:

Dear Mr Watson,
Thank you for your recent emails concerning the problems you have been experiencing with the Security Industry Authority (SIA). I apologise for the delay in replying.

I appreciate the importance of this issue, and I understand your frustration at being unable to receive a satisfactory response from the SIA.

I have therefore written on your behalf to Mike Wilson, Chief Executive of the SIA, and Meg Hillier MP, Parlimentary Under Secretary of State for Identity at the Home Office, and I will write to you again when I receive a reply.

With regard to the problems you have experienced updating your address details, I have had success contacting the SIA on similar problems in the past, and would be happy to do so on your behalf. Please contact my constituency office if you would like me to make any such representations.

Yours sincerely
Helen Goodman


Step one - Make local MP aware: Complete

Step two - Make a difference: Pending

Petition Time

There is a new petition on the 10 Downing Street website, asking for an investigation into the Security Industry Authority, due to the fact that applications are taking longer than they should, being unable to contact the SIA by any means, and the fact that because of these and other issues the SIA is creating unemployment in the industry.

Ive signed it, as have others already - I fully recommend that every single security officer in the country sign it, as unless large numbers of officers do so, it will go unheard like every other attempt at getting the government to investigate the industry sofar.

Click here for the petition

I forgot to tell everyone I have a poor memory....

I knew there was something I was supposed to do yesterday.
I emailed my MP, Helen Goodman about the lack of contact I've had regarding both emails I have sent to her, advising that I was given a timescale for a reply by the person I spoke to at her constituency office, so I expected a reply, and have yet to receive one.

But I forgot to mention it on here. I know it's only a day late, but if I start forgetting to post, this page will go quiet, and the information wont be kept updated - I know what I'm like for things like this.

Whether this will speed up the process or not is a completely different matter.

I heard it through the grapevine...

..aka securityoracle forums lol.
I've heard today, whether it's just rumour or not I'm not fully aware, although it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, that when The SIA moved their callcentre operations from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Liverpool at the end of 2007, they reduced the number of incoming call lines to the callcentre staff because 'if there are less lines, then less people will be on hold, removing frustration at being on hold for so long'.
Now, having worked in a callcentre in the past as a calltaking spacemonkey, thats just bad practice.
If the account I worked on (can't mention what one, still covered by official secrets act) had that approach, the callcentre would have lost the contract within weeks. As it was, calls kept on hold, even if we were placing them on hold to find out some information, were charged to our company by the second, so if we had put people on hold for as long as we have been kept on hold with the SIA since its inception, the bill would have run into the millions by now.

I've just had a quick google for information on this, and instead I found the press release from the SIA regarding the £23 Million 4 year contract they signed with BT in 2003 for them to create the original callcentre and application processing centre in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but lo and behold, nothing about the move to Liverpool.

Something else I have just found is some House of Commons questions from June 2006, stating that the callcentre used to average around 1000 calls per day, but during March 2006 the callrate was four times that, increasing to around 8000 calls on 20th March 2006. The result of this was the increase of incoming call lines, and employment of more operators.

So what the hell happened?
We went from having few callcentre staff, to having more than enough (if we go by the House of Commons report), then they move sites and REDUCE the amount of incoming lines, to 'remove frustration'.
Where do they get these people!?!
If anything, it increases frustration at not being able to get through in the first place, then once we're on hold we're on for a minimum of half an hour before getting through to someone who hasn't got a clue.

Ok, rant over.... for now, but it's just going to raise it's head more and more.

How long does it take?

So as of tomorrow, Wednesday 20th, it will be 4 weeks since I first emailed my MP, Helen Goodman about the state of the UK security industry, and have I had a reply? NOPE!
The only confirmation I've had that she even received the email, was when I telephoned her office about my personal problem with the SIA, which will be 2 weeks ago on Thursday, and if you remember rightly, I was told I would receive a reply within the week.... long week this isn't it!

I think I'll be sending a follow-up email on Thursday, to find out when I will be receiving a reply, if at all.

Bad English

I was looking at the SIA's website the other night, to find some information for a new member on the Security Oracle forum, and it struck me just how poor the information was on what activities needed licences etc.
So Ive decided, Im going to sit down and translate from SIA into english, everything on their site which relates to licensing, and maybe other sections too.
It may take a while, but they dont seem to care whether we understand their descriptions of things or not, and when we contact them to find out, they just refer us back to the site for information, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Anyone willing to assist???

Well...

.. I'm not building my hopes up just yet.
I emailed my MP, Helen Goodman earlier today, with regards to the personal problems I've had with the SIA over the last 16 months, and seeing as I am yet to receive any form of reply from her for the email I sent to her 3 weeks ago on wednesday, I'm not going to get too hopeful just yet.

All I want is someone to turn around and say 'yeah, we've screwed up with this, sorry' but I can't see it happening to be honest.

Ok, so I had an idea earlier

I know that assault on a police officer carries a more severe sentence than if the officer was a normal citizen, but I wondered if heavier sentences were also given to people assaulting prison officers or members of the armed forces whilst on duty (in the UK), and I could find nothing.
The reason I wanted to know this information, is related to the assaults on security officers, which don't seem to be taken as a serious crime by the British Judicial system.

As a security officer, whether working in retail, or industrial, or even as a door supervisor, we are the police of our places of work. Even if just working as 'loss prevention', our jobs are to maintain law and order, and as such, if we are assaulted or even killed, those charged with crimes against us should be charged as if they had committed them against a Police Officer.

I know its a longshot, but why shouldnt it happen?
Its becoming more and more common to hear about assaults on security officers, and yet those who commit these assaults are treated as though they had just assaulted another citizen on the street.
So what needs to happen?
Well, either we need tougher sentences for persons who commit assaults, or for those persons to be charged as above, as though the crime was against a Police Officer.

Just one more thing to add to our list of issues that need to be resolved within the security industry.

And so it begins....

Around 20 minutes ago, I received a phonecall from the office of Helen Goodman, my local MP.
I telephoned her office yesterday to speak about the problems Ive personally been having with the SIA, and to confirm the receipt of my email about the state of the security industry as a whole that I sent to her 2 weeks ago.
I was told, that the email is being looked into and that I would receive a reply within the next week, and that my problems with the SIA should be put to her as a letter of complaint about the way I have been treated by them over what is actually a trivial matter, but its the way they have gone about it, and the principal of the thing that annoys me the most.

So, here is where it begins.
Within the week I will have a reply from my local MP as to what her views are on the problems we in the security industry are experiencing, and hopefully something may be looked into by the powers that be for a solution to it all.

Lets just wait and see....

Welcome....

Although this is only the first post here, it won't be the last.

I am a licensed Door Supervisor, commonly called a bouncer, and I like many others have decided that we have had enough of the governing body controlling licencing of the private security sector, the Security Industry Authority, so I have decided to start this blog to air the views of Security personnel around the country.

From personal experience, the SIA are an organisation who are more than happy to take our money, but when it comes to contacting them on even the most simple of questions, they have been found to be at the best completely unhelpful, and at worst criminal in their handling of people's documents, and as detailed in the media, allowing many hundreds or even thousands of illegal immigrants to obtain licences.

So, a group of security officers including myself have banded together to form the Association of Professional Security Officers in the hope that as an organised group we will finally be able to have a voice with which we can make a difference within the private security industry, as individually we are ignored, especially by the SIA.

Sofar, I have spent 16 months attempting to change my address with the SIA, having spent the first 13 months repeatedly emailing and telephoning them asking just what procedure I had to go through to do this, then I was finally told to just send a letter with my old and new addresses on, and yesterday I received a reply letter, telling me that I now had to send them more documentation to confirm my new address.
This letter, was sent to my old address, and if it weren't for the fact my parents still live at that address, I would have never received it.

After spending quite some time on hold, I finally spoke to someone about this - he basically didnt care.

I, like many others are just completely fed up with the way we are treated by the SIA.
They do nothing but create problems for security officers, and loopholes for criminals, as although a criminal can not get a licence, he can instead become a 'Security Consultant', so long as he doesn't take part in any licensable activity, or be a director of a Security company.

I urge all security personnel in the UK, whether they work in retail security, in an office, in a pub or club, or even on a building site in the middle of nowhere to contact me with their stories of SIA incompetence.
Maybe together our experiences will be enough for the government to make a change to the SIA, as the way it currently stands they are not working for us, the people on the front line, and the way this country is going with regards to crime, especially knife crime, our lives are only going to get worse rather than better.

Watch this space for more about the UK security industry....