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....