After listening to concerns from individual vehicle immobilisers (VIs) and vehicle immobilisation companies, the SIA met with its approved independent qualification awarding body for Vehicle Immobilisers, Edexcel, to discuss reports that there was a problem in issuing VI qualification certificates for the new national Level 2 qualification.
Edexcel has identified that there is an issue regarding the late submission of papers for marking from their training centres. This has resulted in some applicants being unable to apply and receive their SIA Vehicle Immobilisation licence in time for the offence date of 28 Feb 2005.
The SIA are consequently seeking Ministerial approval to postpone the current offence date for Vehicle Immobilisation, as it would be unfair to criminalise people or damage legitimate businesses where people have genuinely tried to comply with the law. The SIA are liaising with Edexcel to determine the extent of the problem and will communicate as soon as possible how long the enforcement date will be deferred for.
Andy Drane, Deputy Chief Executive of the SIA, said:
“Whilst the SIA normally takes a tough line on offence dates where there is inaction on behalf of the regulated community, we also take a fair line when it is clear that well intentioned people would be unable to comply because of significant system problems. Edexcel are working with their training providers to improve the processes so that contractual standards can be met. It is important that individual applicants and VI companies choose a training provider that can give an assurance that Edexcel and SIA standards can be achieved.”
Sallyann Baldry at Edexcel said:
“We are working closely with our approved training providers and employers to streamline the processing of the qualification that has been developed to support the SIA licensing. We put extra staff on to processing the late entries and these have now been cleared. We are pleased that the SIA has taken account of the need to establish high quality training provision. This is why we are supporting the SIA’s request for an extension to the deadline. We are confident this will raise the standards of professionalism within the private security industry.”