Getting your SIA Licence

Thinking of becoming a Door Supervisor ?

Looking for a job within the Private Security Industry?

Not sure how to go about getting your licence?

I'm here to help !

 I have prepared a quick insight into how to go about gaining that all important licence you need to get that job and start earning a living !

Ok, im going to start to tell you a little about the SIA, they are responsible ultimately for issuing you with your licence. Here is a brief description of who they are and what they do...

The SIA is a government body set up to regulate and licence the private security industry in the UK. Established in 2003 following the Private Security Act 2001 and answerable to the Home Secretary.

The purpose of the SIA is to

Regulate the private security industry

Help to reduce criminal activity

Raise the standards and quality of service

The SIA have two main responsibilities

1. Compulsory licensing of each individual working within the sector described below.

2. Manage and maintain the voluntary Approved Contractor Scheme [ACS] which was set up following consultation with industry representatives and with the mind to improve the professional standards of services providers.

If you are looking to work in the private security industry as a:

• Door Supervisor
• Security Guard
• CCTV Operator
• Vehicle Immobiliser
• Cash in Transit security person 

then you have by law, to be licensed to do that particular role.

You must have an SIA licence before you start work 

It is a criminal offence if you work without the appropriate licence and if found that you have been working without a licence, you could be fined up to £5000 or face a prison sentence for up to 6 months.

Furthermore, your employer knowingly allowing you to operate without a licence, will face criminal charges if found guilty in a cour of law.

These licences are issued by the SIA for all personnel that have completed the required training and passed the relevant examination that are provided by numerous training organisation some of which can be found on the SIA website.

Step 1 to gaining your licence

• The first step to gaining your licence is to search the web for a local training provider. There are many out there, so speak to them, listen to what they say. If you get someone say "yes I will guarantee you will pass" wink, wink say no more, then avoid that company at all costs.

• The problem is that there are plenty of cowboy operators out there simply interested in your money and not what they are teaching you. 

• All these companies are audited by the awarding body and by the SIA and if found that they are not meeting the legal requirement their licence to operate could easily be revoked.

• What that means to you is that if the company looses their licence to teach then by default you may loose your licence to operate within your chosen profession and your hard earned money you paid for the couse will be for nothing, you might have to do the course all over again. 

Is it worth cheating ?    NO ITS NOT !

Step 2 applying for your SIA licence

Once you complete a course with a training provider and have passed the relevant examination, you need to apply to the SIA for your licence. The cost for the licence is £220 and will look something like this:

The typical costs of becoming licensed vary dependant on which couse you take: 

Example:

Door Supervisor costs:

Couses can range  from between £110 - £200 + Vat dependant on the training organisation. Once you complete the training there is a short wait to see if you have passed the course. A certificate will be issued for the couse you have taken by the examining board. 

Some courses such as the Close Protection courses can run into  2 - 3 thousand pounds, again dependant on where you go for the training.

Please be advised, for these types of course, if your 18 wet behind the ears, there is very little point in shelling out for a close protection course .. so again b careful if you are thinking of applying for one of these courses, ask questions, a good training provider will tell you straight if its for you.

These courses are best suited to ex military personel or more mature people who have life experience.

Its a bit like saying if you was David Beckham and you wanted a close protection bodyguard would you go for ex military with advanced skills or an 18 - 20 year old to look after your children and wife.. simple answer really when you look at it that way!!

Unscrupulous training organisations will take your money knowing you have 

little or no chance of finding work. 

Buyer Beware !!!

Anyway, the examination board could be one of the following awarding bodies:

British Institute of Inn Keeping [BIIAB]

Highfield ABC

Edexcel

City & Guilds

NOCN

EDI

Example: Certificate

This is your proof that you have met the necessary requirements of the course. 

The above certificate is not your licence.

Obtaining you licence

To obtain your licence you have to apply to the SIA for your licence. The training organisation where you took the course usually has all the relevant details together with a service to assist you in filling in the application as something like 1 in 10 are sent back because they are incorrectly filled in.

There is usually a small charge made for this service. This could be between £10 - £20 for this service and is for the administration costs preparing and setting up the application. 

Part of the cost of the SIA licence is to complete a background check or a CRB: Criminal Records Bureau. It is very unlikely that if you have recent criminal activities on record you will be granted a licence.

Never the less it is my advice that anyone that wishes to obtain a SIA licence to be employed in the Private Security Industry: 

must complete their OWN DUE DILIGENCE

Check out the local training providers

Ask questions

Check out the facilities 

Make sure they have the resources

Get qualified

Get a licence

If you have any specific questions you want to ask then contact me via email or leave a comment below and i'll help any way I can.

Why not become a FOLLOWER and as my site expands you'll have all the information at the click of a button.

Please tell your friends and post / link this article if you feel it will be of any use to them.

Thank you for reading and 

Good luck !

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Door Supervisor Requirement

Do you work as a Door Supervisor?

Ever had to face violence or aggression during the course of your work?

Changes have taken place and it is now a requirement that anybody wishing to become a door supervisor will have to undertaken and successfully pass the new Physical Intervention Skills for the Private Security Industry exam.

Let's look at this in more detail:

The first thing we need to look at is what is physical intervention and we have already defined that in this article  What is Physical Intervention .  Another definition widely used within the Private Security industry is " the use of direct or indirect force (bodily, physical or mechanical) to limit another person's movement".

One of the things that I constantly hear people say is that physical intervention should always be used as the last resort.

One of the many questions that I do ask my students is can anybody tell me what physical intervention is and when should it be used? 

Over the last 17 years I can honestly say that the vast majority of students I have taught have given me a similar answer: physical intervention is physically holding somebody limiting their movement and only ever done as the last resort.

What I find interesting is the terminology used in particular the last resort. It amazes me how many times staff will use the term the last resort and this is generally down to the fact that over the years that term has been branded around and has become synonymous with physical intervention.

The reality is that the last resort is not a legal reason to physically place your hands on to another human being. For physical intervention to take place whereby a door person places their hands on to another person there has to be legal criteria for that to become lawful. To say it was the last resort is not a legal defence.

In order for physical intervention to be legal it has to comply with a clearly defined set of criteria. These criteria can be found in various pieces of legislation from common law which is law of the land, created in some cases over centuries and forms part of our legal system. 

Example:

“if any person has an honestly held belief that he or another is in imminent danger then he may use such force as is reasonable and necessary to avert the danger"

To put this in practice what this actually means is that while on duty should a door supervisor feel that they or another person is in danger of being hurt through an act of violence, then they are allowed to use such force as is reasonable and necessary to protect themselves or others.

Golden rules that I try to teach all my students 

If you find yourself in a position where force is needed to be used they must ask themselves the following questions:

• Will the physical intervention be reasonable
• Will it be necessary
• Will it be proportionate
• Will it be justifiable
• Have all other options available been exhausted, leaving no other option

If you can answer yes to all those questions then it is safe to say that you will act within the law and would have used physical intervention as it should both used.

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Physical Intervention and the Human Rights Act 1998

Human Rights Act 1998 

and the European Convention on Human Rights

The Human Rights Act is possibly the most important piece of legislation in the UK regarding human rights. It came into effect 2nd of October 2000 and is concerned with enforcing the terms of European Convention on Human Rights in UK Law.

While the Human Rights Act primarily focuses on public authorities, its principles have developed into wider individual responsibilities. 

It gives every UK citizen a clear statement of their rights and responsibilities and provides each citizen with the opportunity to challenge more easily actions of the state and of other such public authorities. 

Physical intervention is relevant to:

Article 2 - Right to life

Article 3 - Prohibition of torture, inhumane or degrading treatment

Article 5 - Right to liberty

Article 8 - Right to respect for private and family life

Article 14 - Right to freedom from discrimination in respect of Convention rights

Interference with the individuals human rights must be necessary, legitimate and proportionate to the aims being pursued.

If force is not proportionate, then this may account to a breach of Articles.

This legislation  has a significant impact on physical intervention being taught in the UK today.  It is no longer acceptable to be taught techniques dependent training, but training now has to be managed and structured, delivered to comply with the conventions rights if it is to be considered legal. All training delivered must incorporate the protected rights of individuals within their training. 

Article 2 -  is the primary article when considering the use of force within physical intervention.

The Article says:

“Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law” 

The impact for organisations is that any training,  training material, policy and practice procedures, must promote a positive duty to the preservation of life.  Therefore unless it is absolutely necessary, any training that teaches techniques that are deemed to be high risk  as a primary method of control,  and that can potentially lead to death could be in breach of Article 2  and furthermore could lead to prosecution of the organisation under The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.

In addition, the new amendment to The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 which came into effect on 13 September 2011 means that organisations can now be prosecuted under this Act for deaths in custody.

Following the amendment to the Work-Related Deaths Protocol (WRDP) which came into effect on 1 October 2011, it is also possible that where manslaughter or homicide charges are not relevant, prosecution can be brought before an inquest held by the Health and Safety Executive, Police. CPS and Local Authority if it is believed to be in the interest of justice.

As you can see the Human Rights Act 2007 has a profound influence on the use Physical Intervention. Commissioning organisations and training providers have a duty of care to promote life and this must be at the forefront of any delivery of physical intervention skills training and the implementation of using the skills taught in the workplace.

Download The Human Rights Act 1998

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What is Physical Intervention

Physical Intervention definition :

I have often over the years been asked what is the definition of physical intervention, and the reason why I am asked these questions is because of the confusion that is often out there with so many different explanations given that to be fair it can be quite mind-boggling.

What I am trying to do is to make things simple for people. You see part of the problem is that the information we get today comes from politicians, legislation, high-ranking officials and to be fair the language that is used can be complicated and full of jargon that the average person working in the field of security or care may find difficult to understand.


When I talk about physical intervention it will be in the context of restrictive physical intervention or RPI for short, that  means restricting the movement of a person through physical contact as opposed to mechanical barriers etc


Therefore I will attempt to make it simple for everybody to understand what is the definition of physical intervention.

Here we go:

Physical Intervention Is the minimum application of reasonable and necessary force to physically support a person at the point of physical aggression.

PRIME-Care Training [PCT] 2012

I have worked and trained people within the care sector since 1996. One of the strange things that I have noticed is that far too often we talk about the need to physically hold, detain or retrain a person without having any real understanding of why it is necessary to do just that.

For me the keywords are highlighted above:
MINIMUM, REASONABLE, NECESSARY, SUPPORT.

Hold, detain or restrain is detached from the reason why we as people step out of our comfort zone and do that what we ourselves do not wish to happen to us: hold someone against their will.

Ever asked the question why do we do that ?

The answer is because we care for the people we look after and are responsible for  and that could be working within the care sector whereby we show a duty of care to our clients, peers and the aggressor or working within private security and our duty of care is to our employees, general public to ensure that they are safe and away from harm.

Physical Intervention should never be taken lightly. Used correctly and in line with current legislation it is a necessary tool in our toolbox to help support the vulnerable at times when they need it most.

We should never loose sight of the fact that we are using physically intervention in the best interest of that person, for their safety and that of others.

If you work in the care sector and wish to find out more then click on the link below and visit my site or alternatively visit the site and give me a call, i'll be only too glad to help or give advice.

Jovan Lazic

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PRIME-Care Training [PCT]

PCT is a Physical Intervention Training provider that provides the PRIME-Care Training Model to a wide range of organisations looking after children with challenging behaviour, from special schools to children's homes to secure units to name a few, on how to safely and appropriately respond and  manage challenging behaviour from young people in our care.

PRIME-Care offers the necessary skills and strategies to help support young people throughout their day. The need for support is never more appropriate then at the point where behaviour escalates and it becomes necessary to physically support and protect young people, others and prevent any serious damage to property.

By applying the PRIME-Care principles of care, the working environment will be safer, more understanding and better equipped to educate and provide a consistent high level of care.

From there you will be able to download legislation, guidance and some general information relating to Physical Intervention and the Human Rights Act  2007, Health and Safety Act 1974 and much more.

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