Number of SIA licences suspended due to concerns about training
Published 17 November 2022
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1. Request
In the past 3 years how many licences have been suspended due to concerns about the quality of training?
2. Response
I confirm that the SIA does not hold the information that you have requested. This e-mail constitutes a notice of refusal to comply with your request for the reason explained below.
2.1 Exceeding the Appropriate Cost Limit
Section 12(1) – (4) of the Freedom of Information Act allows a public authority to refuse to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the appropriate limit to comply with the request in its entirety or to confirm or deny whether the requested information is held. In the case of a public authority such as the SIA, the appropriate cost limit is £450.
The ICO guidance ‘The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004’ sets out how a public authority should estimate whether the work required to obtain information is reasonable and appropriate. In the case of requests that would require work on the part of public authority staff, this is estimated at a rate of £25 per person per hour. This means that 18 hours is considered the appropriate limit.
2.2 What information can we provide?
For the calendar years 2019 to 2022 inclusive we suspended the following number of licences:
| Year | Licences suspended |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 820 |
| 2021 | 807 |
| 2022 | 839 |
This totals 2,466 suspended licences over this period. As explained to you in the previous refusal notice, reporting limitations mean that we are unable to break these figures down by the reasons for each suspension without looking at each suspension on a case-by-case basis. This task would significantly exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours and appropriate cost limit of £450.
I also wish to point out that even where there is a concern about a training provider, it would not automatically lead to a licence suspension. Another option available to the SIA would be to impose a licence condition on a licence holder’s licence requiring them to undertake the relevant training modules again within a defined period of time.
While I note that you have reduced the scope of your request from 5 years to 3 years, it still exceeds the appropriate limit of 18 hours and appropriate cost limit of £450. In order to facilitate your request, I suggest that you further limit the scope to a particular month within a year and we can manually search each suspension on a month-to-month basis until the appropriate limit is reached. It is a time intensive exercise to look at each licence holder’s account where there has been a suspension and it is also difficult to calculate how long it will take to look at a licence holder’s account to determine the relevant information which is why I have suggested a month-to-month approach.
The decisions team have confirmed that there have been no suspensions during 2022 to date on the basis of concerns about the quality of training which should better assist you in determining how to reduce the scope of your request.
[Reference: FOI 0364]