FOI release

SIA licence holders with criminal records

Published 29 January 2024

© Crown copyright 2024

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sia-licence-holders-with-criminal-records/sia-licence-holders-with-criminal-records

1. Request

Please tell me:

  1. Your procedures on dealing with convicted security guards.

  2. How many under your scheme have criminal records. I require this information for these specific years: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023.

2. Response

I can confirm that the SIA does hold this information.

2.1 SIA procedures regarding criminal convictions

The SIA’s statutory criteria on how we deal with licence applicants and licence holders who have previous convictions is publicly available online: SIA: Get Licensed.

The pages relevant to your request are pages 28 to 42 – in particular, pages 30 to 33. You may also wish to read through Annex A from page 63 onwards. This is a list of the offences the SIA deems as relevant for the purposes of holding an SIA licence. Please note that this list is not exhaustive.

2.2 Number of SIA licence holders with a criminal record

Please note that we have included the year 2021 in your request. Please also be aware that these figures are based on licence holders who had criminality at the point of their licence application.

The figures are in respect of granted licences and:

  • licence applicants who did not have criminality flagged during the application process
  • licence applicants who did have criminality flagged during the application process, regardless of the relevance of the offence
Year No criminal record Has criminal record Total
2017 101,775 20,761 122,433
2018 115,409 23,039 138,384
2019 102,733 20,892 123,582
2020 112,780 20,447 133,188
2021 142,564 16,198 158,709
2022 121,471 14,149 135,572
2023 148,420 13,854 162,218
Total 558,623 90,213 630,943

[Reference: FOI 0481]

Back to top