The Private Security Industry Act 2001 does not require manned guards employed in-house to be licensed unless their activities are in relation to licensed premises*. In 2004, we commissioned a review to explore the benefits and implications of extending the legislation to cover in-house manned guards.
Many of those consulted felt that in-house manned guarding should be regulated. This was because of:
- The variation and absence of enforceable standards of competence and vetting;
- The potential migration of staff away from the licensed contract sector (if they cannot reach the required standards) to an unlicensed in-house sector;
- The increased risk to public safety through confusion as to who is and is not licensed and possible misplaced trust and reliance by the public.
We appreciate the strong philosophical arguments for regulating in-house security. However, there are a considerable number of political, legislative and commercial considerations that must be taken into account, not least of which is the difficulty of defining security functions across many diverse business sectors. Overcoming this difficulty will require careful planning and the suitable allocation of resources.
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We want to gather feedback and collate evidence from all sectors about licensing in-house guards. We will use this information when making our recommendation to ministers on whether or not in-house guards should be licensed. You can help us by completing our questionnaire and returning it to us by 30 September 2008.
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You may also wish to download the notes from the in-house 'think tank' that we held in December 2007 (download size: 117kb).
*'in relation to licensed premises' means when those premises are open to the public, at times when alcohol is being supplied for consumption, or regulated entertainment is being provided, on the premises. |