Following an Management Buyout (MBO) backed by Cable Capital Partners, Bibby Financial Services (BFS) has provided a £6million funding line to Emprise Services Plc, a company specialising in cleaning and security services, which employs 4,500 people nationwide. Founded 30 years ago, Emprise employs 4,500 people across the UK. It services over 1,000 locations a day, generating a turnover of c£60 million. Its clients include Pure Gym, the UK’s largest private gym operator; Hilton Hotels, Delfont Mackintosh, Dentons, Viacom and The National Theatre. Emprise aims to build on its favourable...

The Security Industry Authority has released the following update on their new licensing system. "Happy New Year from the SIA – we hope that you have had a safe start to 2017. "The number of licence decisions that we made in December was 7,380.  From the introduction of the new system in July 2016 to the end of 2016, we made 46,444 licence decisions. "Our document handling centre was able to meet the target of returning documents within five days throughout the Christmas and New Year period and has continued this into January. "A problem with non-front line licence renewal, which ...

It is clear that there needs to be a dialogue opened between the Regulated Security Industry and the Security Industry Authority. As I have written on many occasions, the Regulated Security Industry is at best, standing still. There are issues which need to be discussed, such as the Apprenticeships Levy, Living Wage increases, the Approved Contractors Scheme, commoditizing of the Security Industry and Pensions, most of which are not accepted by end users. Challenges from other industries, such as electronic security, are resulting in security services diminishing. Robots are being viewed as...

The threat to the UK from terrorism remains at SEVERE meaning that ‘an attack is highly likely’. While there is currently no specific threat, the recent terrorist attack on the football stadium in Istanbul, following on from last year’s Paris attacks at the Stade de France and Bataclan Theatre, was a timely reminder. As a result, law enforcement and private security patrols and activity at sports stadia, shopping centres and other crowded places must continue to be vigilant throughout the Christmas period. In response, the National Counter Terrorism Office (NaCTSO) recently launched a n...

The Security Industry Authority has released the following update on their new licensing system. "We have made over 43,000 decisions against applications since the new licensing system went live on 06 July 2016. "As we let you know last week, the applications where payment was received but which did not progress to ‘Next Steps’, have now been manually checked. The team that carried out this work are now looking at the applications in ‘Checks in Progress’. They will ensure that no application is failing to move forward due to system errors. "A further update to the system will b...

The Security Industry Authority has released the following update on their new licensing system. "In the first seven days of December we have made 2,209 licensing decisions. This is in line with the performance that we achieved in November. "This week saw a major milestone in the management of applications. Every application where payment has been received but that has failed to move forward from Next Steps, has now been manually checked. If the problem was technical, it has been corrected. Anyone whose application has not moved forward should check the message “Instructions to complet...

The Security Industry Authority has released the following update on their new licensing system. "In November we made over 11,600 licensing decisions which has brought the total number of decisions since the system began to more than 38,000. The figure for November is the highest recorded since the introduction of the new system in July 2016, and the highest monthly total in 2016. "We have continued our work examining the applications that have not moved smoothly through the system. We are contacting applicants where further action (such as visiting the post office or sending us document...

The Security Industry Authority has released the following update on their new licensing system. "There has been good progress this week in a number of areas. We are currently dispatching documents back to people after no more than eight working days. This is still above our target of five working days but has seen a steady improvement which we will continue to build upon. The number of incoming messages this week was the lowest recorded, since the introduction of the new process. This number includes requests for help with the new system. We have made more licence application de...

The Security Industry Authority has released the following update on their new licensing system. "We have continued our work to reduce the number of applications that have not moved forward from ‘Next Steps’.  The majority of these applications require an action from the applicant before they can move forward.  Our team is going into each of these individual applications and issuing reminders but, if you have an application in ‘Next Steps’, you can assist the process by making sure you have carried out all the required actions. "We have added a new page to our website tha...

The Security Industry Authority has released the following update on their new licensing system. "This week we passed 30,000 licensing decisions since the introduction of the new system. We are making decisions at the fastest rate since the system was switched on. "The number of applications in ‘Next Steps’ has reduced following targeted work to tackle these cases. There are still more cases to be dealt with, so we are repeating the advice from last week: "If you have an application in ‘Next Steps’ please make sure that you have completed all the actions contained in th...