The licensing process for the actual commercial security companies was not a pressing issue. The granting of personal licenses, the control of suitability (clean criminal record) and fulfilment of training requirements (certificates) turned out to be the two main topics occupying the interviewees. In practice, the time used by the authorities when handling applications was the contentious point in all regulatory regimes under study.
On the one hand, industry representatives shared a general opinion that the handling of applications is not as smooth as it could be and should be. On the other hand, the licensing authorities, in most cases, thought that the processes were working satisfactorily. The industry’s worries were very similar in the regulatory regimes under study but the systems in place had some basic differences depending on the working cultures developed between the parties. The main issue related to:
(a) applicants for guarding posts being recruited to security companies from the beginning of the process,
as opposed to:
(b) applicants being recruited to security companies after they have completed their training and having authorisation to work as a security guard.
Even if the procedures consist of different parts (licensing and training), they are for the applicants and the companies a complete entity, with different parts related to it and affecting its smoothness. Because it is seen by the participants as one process, it has been analysed as such. In the following text the licensing and training are handled regulatory regime by regulatory regime.
11.1 Situation in the regulatory regimes under study Belgium
Licensing
In Belgium, as in the other regulatory regimes under study, the licensing of the security companies was not a ‘big deal’ as can be noticed from the following, generally applicable local comment: “The licensing procedure for the companies is not the first priority. We can handle that as it is for the moment. It is not too bad; we understand it has to be done.” (Manager) There were more critical opinions assessing the licensing of
the business as too complicated and taking too long a time: “To license a company you can have an average of six months. ...the licensing procedure is too long and also too detailed.” (Expert)
The security guard licensing procedure and the things connected to it were strictly regulated in Belgium. The licensing was possible only after the training, which meant that in all cases it took at least one month for a guard to have a license to start to work, as was stated by one interviewee: “The basic training is four weeks. So the fastest possibility to start to work is one month.” (Manager). It has to be taken into consideration that this period does not include the recruiting of personnel which increases the ‘waiting’ time. The actual licensing process seemed to be quite smooth and was not experienced as a problem by the licensees or the companies, as was stated by in an expert comment: “The average [handling] time is now between five and fifteen days, so it is not too bad.”
In the licensing process the fluctuation of the licensors handling the applications was seen as one of the main factors affecting negatively its flexibility. Often when a person had gained experience in her/his job s/he would leave. This problem was commented on in the following way:
“The head of the [controlling] department has an academic background. ...other members are young people most of them with university degree. What we see is that if they are good people, they leave after two three years for the private industry.” (Manager)
The whole period between recruitment and the granting of a license was considered to be a very problematic matter, strongly affecting the business. One of the interviewees gave an example of a real life situation where the interests of a company and the regulations were in conflict. The company was faced with an acute demand for more licensed personnel because of business development reasons but also because of changes in the customers’ security arrangements:
“…there was an increasing demand from the clients at a certain point ... they needed over hundred new people so I organised here a twenty day recruitment campaign project and succeeded in twenty working days to have those people. It was a huge project but they [recruits] needed to be put urgently on work.”
(Manager)
The interviewee saw this kind of situation as a dilemma because to meet, sometimes urgent, customer needs, one has to balance the risk of bending the rules of the length of training: “…in a case of an incident we would not be far from a crisis situation. So it is difficult, if we don’t do it we lose business.”
Regular control of security companies’ (regulation) compliance is an ongoing challenge for the authorities. A complaint of an unequal scrutiny was expressed here as in many other regulatory regimes by a representative of the security companies:
“That is the problem, they do not have the resources to organise this control. ... It is not working properly and we are from the employers’ side asking for more control also for the many, many small companies which are not controlled at all.”
(Manager) Training
Training attached to licensing was organised mostly by the companies themselves within units which, according to the law, needed separate authorisation: “The companies need a license and also the [training] schools need one... Every training institution needs a license given by the same authority which controls the industry’s other licenses.” (Manager) In practice the training was in the hands of the principal commercial security companies: “Most of the big companies have their own schools.
...There are also some independent schools but the big three [internal ones] deliver 95%
of the training.” There was a general wish within the industry for a more flexible licensing and training procedure: “I would make it closer to the business. It does not mean that training should be cancelled, not at all - on the contrary but it should be organised in another way.” (Industry expert) Models from some other countries were quoted by the interviewee as solutions that could be considered:
“In some other European countries it [training] is more spread during the first year. For instance you have somebody you take in, you have one to two days of intake procedure of training for instance, then you should have the possibility to put the agent on stage for a first period of experience and call him back within one week.”
There were, however, plans in Belgium to centralise training arrangements and moving private security education to a publicly controlled institution:
“...the major discussion in our country today is, should every security company have their proper training internally or should there be one school. If you go and look into the mindset of the authorities, they are trying to go to a one school model to harmonise this and of course to have more impact on it.” (Expert)
The commercial security industry viewed this as an attempt by the authorities to increase their influence on the training and create government controlled law enforcement education:
“Now the examination is done by the authorities themselves so more and more you can see government having an impact on the training. It is good if you come to one institution but which is still in the hands of the private sector itself, not a
public school on private security with a system where you have next to a regular police academy a part that is for private security personnel.”
Estonia Licensing
In Estonia, the companies were obliged to inform the police immediately a new recruit for a criminal record assessment. Training certificates were given by the industry association (ASA) and the register of persons who had passed the examination was kept by them, not the authority (police). The information was also forwarded to and registered by the National Vocational Training Centre. The reason that police (the licensing authority) did not keep any registers of the approved guards was due to their limited resources at the time of the implementation of the first industry-specific regulations. The original law set obligations for the police: “…a guard must have a guard card and professional certificate, and the card is given on grounds of the certificate. The police give the card.” (Industry expert) The police did not, however, start to keep the register or to provide the approved guards with the cards. The industry had been proactive in this matter and had even been ready to sponsor the equipment for the register keeping, but:
“…the police said that it would mean so much work, and how could it be organised? …they did not co-operate and they did not have at that time computers
… we said that it is not a problem, we will provide them, but they said no, we don’t take this kind of donations from private actors.”
From the industry and guards’ point of view the registration and the guard card issuance was a police responsibility. The time without a register had created the problem of how to build the registers of all the guards approved during all those years: “So much time has now passed and the people have passed, they have their certificates and to organise the card to them is a quite difficult job. …administratively a lot of money is needed so that it can be materialised.”
The question of systematic control of criminal records of commercial security personnel was unsolved in Estonia. The information of a guard’s misconduct, especially if it happens out of work, did not always reach the employer because there was no actual system to record this. The information flow was dependent on the activity of the local police districts. In the companies there was a firm need to have the information: “But if there were a register, naturally the police would have an obligation to inform the company that their employee has been caught of a crime affecting his license … but today the register is missing.” (Manager) The situation and the courses of action were
not uniform and depended on the activity of the local police handling the case. The actual responsibility of the police was commented on by the same manager in the following way: “If they have a case [concerning a guard] they should follow up it till the end. Today they do something and something they don’t.” Without a comprehensive register and an ongoing follow up the police have and will have problems as the controlling authority managing its follow up task efficiently. Some of the companies tried to be active themselves with the ongoing control of their staff, but there were limited possibilities to do this because private businesses were not allowed to have data on their personnel’s criminal records: “The companies try naturally themselves to get information by making background checks of the staff but they don’t have legal right to ask again from the police if there is new information of their staff or not.” (Industry expert)
Training
In the Estonian system, the training was operationalised in two phases. The first sixteen-hour introductory training, before starting to work as a guard, was given by the companies and there were no guidelines for its content or the trainers’ qualifications:
“The applicant gets this kind of two day training, orientation training, which comes from the firm. It is not ruled in the law who can organise this training. ...not even the content of it is clear, what should be included?” (Industry expert) The basic training course was fifty hours and the training was provided by approved trainers. The control of them was, however quite light: “The fifty hours training can be given by a trainer who has the license from the Ministry of Education. The license must be applied from there but there are no strict requirements, so actually by presenting papers almost everyone can get it.” Control of the training was left to the industry association which was accredited by the educational authorities to do this. This could be understood as a kind of self-control performed by the industry: “But what controls the system is the NVQ system, and our National Association is the accredited body giving the certificates after exams. We have had problems to organise exam controllers, independent from the trainers.”
The ‘official’ basic training course and examination has to be completed within six months after starting to work. The labour legislation, however, allowed fixed employment contracts for two six-month periods and this had been used as a loophole to have a guard working for one year before taking the basic, compulsory training. As the law on private security was not clear on this matter, the industry saw the situation to be