Yesterday (27 Feb), at a meeting of the SIA’s Strategic Consultative Group, Home Office officials updated representatives of the private security industry on the timetable for introducing business licensing.
The group was told:
- The Home Office remains committed to introducing business licensing.
- The necessary arrangements to allow the SIA to start accepting business licence applications in April 2014 are not yet in place, and therefore the ‘open for business’ date is postponed.
- The Home Office will announce a revised business licensing timetable as soon as possible.
- The industry will be given at least three months’ notice of the ‘open for business’ date.
- The revised dates will allow at least six months between the ‘open for business’ date and the legal requirement date – when it will become a legal requirement for businesses to hold a licence.
- The legal requirement date remains 6 April 2015.