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When I first joined the security industry nearly 20 years ago, standards amounted to whatever the respective company laid down. For example, Group 4 – for whom I worked at the time – used to provide seven days of basic training (four days in the classroom and three days on site). Security operatives were paid boot and shoe allowances and overtime, and received service increments. Perhaps more topically, they received a good pension and Death in Service benefits.

Customer loyalty worked both ways. Contract terminations used to coincide with our clients’ liquidation. It must be said that such occurrences were rare and, as such, treated like a bereavement.

Nowadays, we appear to be awash with standards, each one of them supposedly improving matters. To my mind, nothing much has changed – at least not in a positive way. Is this just my perception? What’s the reality?

BS 5750 (ISO 9000) was designed to improve manufacturing quality. It was seen that, by working to a strict set of ‘rules’, a consistent product would be produced. Fine if you are a widget manufacturer, but the widgets in a service industry like security are noticeable by their absence.

Having gone through the pain of attending a ‘Quality College’ and receiving the paperweight, books and badge I am the proud holder of the ‘Quality Standard’. Yes, just call me ‘Mr BS 5750’. What changed with BS 5750? Were the security operatives better remunerated? No. Did we generate more business? No. Ah, then we must have been more profitable? Well, not exactly.

However, we did realise the cost of getting things wrong (ie the price of non-conformance). Strange that I was never allowed to include the cost of quality management and systems within the price of non-conformance...

Just as I was coming to terms with BS 5750, it was changed. BS 5750 wasn’t enough, so out came BS 5750 Part II. The customer benefited not one iota. The quality guys had a great time, though. Lloyds of London made some money, but what about the people on the ground? They were paid a flat rate and duly lost their pensions and Death in Service benefits, but never mind… We have ISO 9000, or is that ISO 9001? Who cares now that everyone has it, anyway?

What, then, does British Standard 5750 (ISO 9000) actually do? What does it mean? For a start, it is not the measure of a good business. It means a given company has ‘done things by the book’. Admittedly the companies themselves can write the book, but once written it is very expensive to alter it – and they have to stick to it. This makes it a rule-based system rather than one founded in good sense. In my view, it stifles any spark of initiative and innovation which can add that certain class and star quality.

The whole affair of applying for and then completing all of the necessary paperwork and bureaucracy is expensive, and involves paying a lot of people a good deal of money to take on a lot of boring work and/or not a lot of work. This fact alone penalises most small businesses. In other words, a considerable number of security companies.

Back in 1991, BS 7499 was launched for a welcoming security industry. At long last, here was a standard that would clip the wings of the cowboys. It is interesting that nobody actually defined what a ‘cowboy operation’ entailed. If ‘ghosting’, double-shift working and/or deploying people without proper training or vetting made a security company a ‘cowboy’ outfit then, by default, almost the entire contract security industry fell into this category at some point or another.

While afforded a British Standard number, BS 7499 was not that at all. It was a ‘Code of Practice for Static Guarding and Mobile Patrol Services’. Who wrote it? Eminent individuals from the electricity industry, the Department of the Environment (as was) and BT. Knowledgeable people, I’m sure, all of whom must have known a good deal about mobile patrol services and static guarding. Of course, BS 7499 was rewritten in 2002 to incorporate the changes brought about by the Private Security Industry Act 2001.

When I first read the Act – and I have done so, from cover to cover – I believed that Security Industry Authority (SIA) licensing would provide proof of basic proficiency and nothing more. As an HGV driver renews his or her licence every three years, so must a security operative do the same. An HGV licence does not signify that the holder is a good driver, but rather that they have passed the core competency tests. For HGV drivers, read security operatives.

Well, it appears that I am wrong. The SIA now sets the standards that we are all expected to follow. A licence is a badge of quality that will inspire end users with confidence. I could of course ask why customers already employing a BSIA-registered company – or indeed a company that has been checked over by the National Security Inspectorate – are neither inspired nor confident, but that would be somewhat churlish.

It would be equally churlish to question the security experience and knowledge of those employed by the SIA. After all, as we all saw with the initial drafting of BS 7499, you do not need to know anything about the workings of an industry in order to regulate it!

The Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) – which is not a standard in the traditional sense of the term – is to be the ultimate badge of quality. Who says so? Well, the SIA of course. On its own web site, the Authority states that the ACS is a mark of how well a company operates. Fantastic! We can now ditch BS 5750, BS 7499 and all the other standards because the ACS will cover all bases. Or perhaps not all standards are quite what they seem?!

I have nothing against BS 5750 or indeed any of the other relevant standards. In an industry as vibrant and innovative as ours, standards will be outdated by the time they are published. This is particularly true where technology comes into play, as something that is 12 months old is frequently passé and technically retired.

Rather than introducing new standards, let’s rid ourselves of some of the old ones and concentrate on those that remain. We’ll then be left with a set of standards that are clearly understood, easily updated and – most important – may be adhered to by all.

Let the SIA deal with licensing. The industry must police itself, and set its own standards in terms of quality of service delivery. The ACS is not – and never will be – a ‘badge of quality’, and should not be advertised as such.

In answering the question: ‘When is a standard not a standard?’, may I offer the following response for SMT’s readers... ‘When money is involved’.

Nick Evans, Senior Manager, Tag Guard Systems