SIA checks to confirm licence holders display their licence
Published 15 November 2023
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1. Request
- How many convictions has the SIA pursued in each of the last 5 calendar years for operatives failing to publicly display their licence when required to do so?
- What steps does the SIA take to audit operatives are publicly displaying their licence when required to do so?
- Linked to query 2, what percentage of SIA licensed operatives are audited each year (5 year average)?
2. Response
I can confirm that the SIA does hold some of this information.
2.1 Question 1
| Year | Number of convictions |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 0 |
| 2020 | 0 |
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 0 |
| 2023 | 0 |
The SIA does have 1 ongoing live prosecution for a failure to display an SIA licence. The outcome of our prosecution cases are posted on our website as are a list of our active prosecutions, and you can see both here:
2.2 Question 2
The SIA does not audit SIA licensed operatives.
The SIA does investigate offending pursuant to section 9 of the Private Security Industry Act 2001 (which the failure to display an SIA licence falls under) that is referred to us via intelligence, desk-based compliance avenues or through the random inspections that SIA investigators carry out regionally. During the random inspections, SIA investigators will approach operatives and undertake a check of their SIA licence. If an individual is seen to not display their SIA licence and is undertaking work within any of the sectors we license, questions will be asked as to why this is. In some cases these matters can be referred to the SIA’s Criminal Investigation team. The SIA has a number of functions which include, but is not limited to, enforcing compliance with the regulatory regime. The SIA has a range of compliance enforcement options falling short of prosecution, such as issuing warning letters, on the spot cautions or the imposition of additional conditions onto an SIA licence, and most cases are dealt with by those lesser measures. However, the SIA may act as a public prosecutor for offences against the Private Security Industry Act as well as other offences that could have a detrimental impact on the private security industry. In accordance with the SIA’s approach to enforcement, this recourse we reserve for the most serious cases.
More information in respect of the sectors that we license can be found here: Apply for an SIA licence.
2.3 Question 3
The SIA does not hold this information. The SIA does not audit SIA licensed operatives.
[Reference: FOI 0459]