More support

I have had a few people recently come to me and offer their names as supporters of the campaign, for which I am grateful, the more the merrier I say.
But today (Sunday 25th) I have spoken to the manager of a local company, Praetorian Security ltd, based here in Bishop Auckland, who has given permission to put him down also as a supporter of the campaign.
He too agrees that there needs to be reform in the industry, starting with the SIA as he has had to lay off many lads and lasses due to the SIA's huge delays in resolving their backlog from last year, one lad has been waiting for about 6 months sofar, and still no badge.

So come on people, put your names down, if there aren't the numbers we will never get taken seriously enough to make a difference.
Yeah, Mike Wilson has recognised we are in existance, but we need to get the rest of the 'powers that be' to recognise us, or else our efforts will be wasted.

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 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.

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.