At the Skills for Security Conference in Oxford on 4^th November, Baroness Henig, Chair of the SIA quoted:

“At this point, I want to emphasise very strongly – and not just because this is a conference held under the auspices of Skills for Security – that as the Regulator, we at the SIA are totally supportive of all the work carried out by Skills on behalf of the industry. Skills for Security is playing a central and invaluable role in developing and upholding the national occupational standards, which we use to draw up our specifications for the competencies for licensing.

Furthermore, I am well aware how hard David Greer and his colleagues are working to ensure that the security industry as a sector is not squeezed out, but is properly represented nationally, at Sector Skills Council level... and we support them fully in their efforts. I see one of the major roles of Skills for Security as being to develop career paths for individuals to enable them to progress effectively, and we at the SIA want to do whatever we can to assist in this process.

I believe that we need a formal mechanism through which we can all work together to raise skills across the board in the private security sector. If there is any possibility of Skills for Security facilitating this process, we would be delighted to take part and to do everything we can to contribute.”

Skills for Security’s Chief Executive David Greer announced “We will accept this hugely important challenge and will be discussing with SIA and stakeholders across the industry, how to take this work forward in the coming months.”

Skills for Security has announced that the Minister of State for Northern Ireland, Paul Goggins MP, whose responsibilities include security and policing in the six counties, will speak at the Skills for Security conference in Belfast on 11th November.

Skills for Security reports that it has been in negotiation with the Learning & Skills Council (LSC) to obtain additional funding for training security staff and systems engineers.