November 3, 2004—David Dickinson, chief executive of the British Security Industry Association, told participants at a recent conference that the number of companies providing manned security services could decline from the current level of 2,000 to perhaps 200.
The conference, focused on the impact of security industry regulation and organized by Reliance Security Services, also heard that although the increased skills required to meet the needs of licensing would create a shortage of licensed security personnel in the short term, in the longer term it would enable the security industry to provide customers with higher added value services including the wider use of technology.
“The certain effect of regulation is that costs, wages and prices will rise,” Dickinson said. “But suppliers have the opportunity to work more closely with customers to combine a more highly skilled workforce with technology. UK businesses will no longer buy security on a commodity basis. Security will be about value instead of price, a career instead of a job and a profession not an industry.”
John Saunders, chief executive of the Security Industry Authority, put similar views forward. He told delegates that regulation would see private security become more professional. But he also agreed that costs in the UK would rise significantly and begin to equate with the higher charges seen in the rest of Europe.
Reprinted with permission; copyright 2004 i-FM
