Door supervisor licensing and related enforcement action

Request

1. What is the appeals process that you send to people who want to appeal against your decision?

2. What specific mechanisms or procedures does the SIA have in place to monitor and rectify potential failures within the bouncer licensing regulation system?

3. What measures are in place to ensure the safety of intoxicated or vulnerable individuals who are taken off the premises of a nightclub or similar facility by bouncers or security personnel?

4. Are there any nightclubs or venues where bouncers are not required to hold a valid SIA licence or undergo formal training?

5. How many reports of door staff/security guards licensed under the SIA have been suspended in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 (please indicate the cut off date for 2023 – eg up to and including October 2023)?

6. How many reports are there of door staff/security guards having their licences revoked in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 (please indicate the cut off date for 2023 – eg up to and including October 2023)? Can these be categorised into reasons why they were revoked?

7. How many people have passed and failed the training in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 (please indicate the cut off date for 2023 – eg up to and including October 2023)?

8. How many general enquiries about complaints have there been in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 (please indicate the cut off date for 2023 – eg up to and including October 2023)?

9. Could you please provide the number of complaints filed specifically regarding discriminatory treatment by licensed bouncers in nightclubs, particularly in relation to discrimination issues and crimes of sexual nature (such as but not limited to sexual assault) whether or not they were proved to be true, in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 (please indicate the cut off date for 2023, e.g., up to and including October 2023)? How many of these were against people in minority groups?

10. How many of these general enquiries about complaints have resulted in further investigation in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 (please indicate the cut off date for 2023 – eg up to and including October 2023)?

11. Has legal action been taken against any SIA licence holders in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 (please indicate the cut off date for 2023 – eg up to and including October 2023)?

12. How many SIA training applications have you had in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 (please indicate the cut off date for 2023 – eg up to and including October 2023)?

Response

I can confirm that the SIA does hold some of this information. A response to each question has been provided below.

Question 1

The appeal process is set out on our website and you can view it here: If we refuse your application for an SIA licence and here: Learn why we would revoke or suspend your licence.

Question 2

All information we receive regarding the conduct of regulated individuals is assessed. Where appropriate, action is taken. This may involve:

• gathering additional information to support our decision processes
• action by our Licence Review team to assess the continuing suitability of a person to hold a licence
• compliance and enforcement actions where offences under the Private Security Industry Act are identified

Question 3

In addition to the licence-linked qualifications that licence holders undertake, we also share good practice through our social media activities and personal engagements with security providers and the venues within in which they work on safeguarding the vulnerable. This includes initiatives such as Ask for Angela, Welfare and Vulnerability Engagement (WAVE) and spiking awareness.

Question 4

Anyone working as a door supervisor at a licensed premises in the UK must have an SIA licence, and as such they will have been required to complete the necessary training for the licence-linked qualification.

Questions 5 and 6

The SIA does not receive reports in respect of licence holders. The SIA is the regulator for the private security industry: we have the power to suspend and revoke licences.

I have attached an Excel spreadsheet which provide the number of licence holders who have had their licences revoked and suspended in the years requested.

Question 7

The SIA does not hold this information. We are not the public body who regulate qualifications, examinations and assessments. For this information you may want to enquire with Ofqual who regulate this sector. Their contact page is here: Contact Ofqual

Question 8

We do not run a complaints service for complaints about security operatives or companies. Instead, we treat such information as intelligence. We evaluate all intelligence we receive to assess whether there is any intervention within our powers that we should take. We do not contact people who provide intelligence to tell them how we used the information they gave us. This is for data protection reasons and because telling people how we use information could affect our ability to take effective action in future.

The table below shows the number of intelligence reports we have received in the years requested. The figures for 2023 are for the period 1 January to 31 October.

Question 9

As above, the SIA does not run a complaints service. The SIA does, however, receive intelligence. The SIA is unable to provide you with number of intelligence reports that were against minority groups and this part of the email will constitute a refusal to deal with your request for the reasons I will set out below.

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.

Reporting limitations within the databases where the intelligence information you have requested is kept means that it cannot be instantly isolated and retrieved. For example, to find the specific information you have requested, the SIA would need to manually interrogate each intelligence report within each year and inspect it to determine where the information is. This exercise, given the number of intelligence reports we have for the substantive part of your request (figures below) would significantly exceed the cost and time limitations.

What information can we provide?

The SIA can provide you with half of your request. We can provide you with the figures for the number of intelligence reports in respect of sexual offending at venues in the years 2020 to 2023.

These figures are:

• 2020 – 17
• 2021 – 24
• 2022 – 30
• 2023 – 25

Question 10

As above, the SIA receives intelligence; we do not run a complaints service. The table below shows the number of intelligence reports which resulted in further investigation in the years requested. The figures for 2023 are for the period 1 January to 31 October.

Question 11

If you have an SIA licence you will be compliant with section 3 Private Security Industry Act 2001 (PSIA). Section 3 of the PSIA makes it an offence to undertake licensable activity without an SIA licence. Therefore, if you are a licence holder, in the correct sector, the SIA would not pursue legal action against you for a section 3 PSIA offence.

However, there are other offences under the PSIA that a licence holder may be prosecuted for. The other offences we prosecute under our Act are:

• Section 5 – deploying unlicensed security operatives
• Section 9 – failure to adhere to licence conditions
• Section 16 – holding yourself out to be a part of the Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) when you are not.
• Section 19 – failure to comply with a statutory request for information
• Section 22 – making a false statement to the SIA, whether recklessly or knowing it is false

Please be aware other agencies are able to prosecute these offences, such as The Crown Prosecution Service, Procurator Fiscal and the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland.

This part of the email will constitute a refusal to deal with your request for the reasons I will set out below.

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.

The information you have requested is kept within a database which does not permit instant isolation and retrieval. To find the figures for the number of prosecutions we have pursued against licence holders the SIA would need to manually go into each prosecution file and interrogate each file to determine whether the person we prosecuted had a licence or not. This exercise, given the number of prosecutions we pursue each year, would significantly exceed the cost and time limitations.

What information can we provide?

The SIA can provide you with some information. We can provide you with the figures for the number of convictions we have received from our private prosecutions within the years 2020 to 2023 for each offence under the PSIA. These figures are shown in the table below.

Notes:

• Section 3 – as above, these individuals were not licence holders at the time of their offending
• Section 9 – to contravene your licence conditions, you must be a licence holder
• Section 5 – figure includes convictions against individuals and security companies

Next steps

In order to better facilitate your request, I suggest that you limit the scope of your request, so that we can manually search each prosecution file until the appropriate cost limit is reached. Given that this will be a very time intensive exercise to manually look at each case and filter out those who had licences and those who did not, I would ask that you limit your search to a particular month within the period that you are interested in. The SIA will search as many cases as possible up to the appropriate cost limit within this reduced timeframe. If we are able to search the case well within the appropriate cost limit we will get in touch and request that you provide us with details of a further month that you would like to be searched.

Question 12

As above, answered in question 3, the SIA do not receive applications for training. The SIA does not deliver training courses, award qualifications, or provide funding for training. The SIA sets what training needs to cover in the ‘knowledge and skills specifications’ which can be found on the SIA website, here: Read the specifications for SIA licence-linked training. We also endorse awarding organisations so that they can develop qualifications, approve training providers, oversee the standard of assessment and award qualifications that the SIA recognises for licensing.

For further information, please visit pages 9 – 26 of our Licensing Criteria, Get Licensed, which is available on our website and can be viewed here: Get Licensed.

[Reference: FOI 0492]