Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing financial support for security officers on low incomes to take first aid courses in order to renew their Security Industry Authority licences.

The Security Industry Authority (SIA) works closely with the private security industry and with training providers to develop qualification specifications and other requirements for all current and prospective licence-holders across the UK. The SIA does not receive any income from training delivered to SIA licence applicants or holders, nor does it control or set the fees, provide the training, or regulate the training providers.

The SIA recognises the importance of supporting licence-holders and applicants and has worked with the training providers’ awarding bodies to ensure that training is as flexible and cost-effective as possible. Options include a mixture of self-study, virtual classrooms, and face-to-face training.

The Security Industry Authority’s licence application fee is fixed in accordance with Schedule 1, section 15(1) of the Private Security Industry Act 2001, which states that the SIA should set its application fees at a level suitable to enable full recovery of costs incurred in delivering its activities, without seeking to make profits. Any variation to waive or vary fees for one cohort would essentially require the SIA to recoup these costs from other applicants or would result in a loss that the taxpayer would subsidise.

The licence fee for all sectors in the private security industry has remained stable since April 2020, when the SIA reduced the licence fee from £210 to £190. The licence application fee is now cheaper in real terms than it was in 2004.

The SIA is responsible for ensuring that all licence holders are ‘fit and proper’ persons and have the required skillset and level of training suitable for their chosen sector, via checks made upon application. It would not therefore be appropriate on public safety grounds to extend licences, without those licence holders being subject to the mandatory checks and training required at application and renewal.