The Importance Of Screening In Security

This is a post I'd been planning to write for a while, but with two recent instances of people having worked within the security industry being in the news for crimes of the worst possible kind, it felt like it's the right time to re-visit it. It's right that the security industry is put under the microscope when someone working in the trade is highlighted as a "bad apple", and it's right that we look at how the industry as a whole can improve and prevent this from happening again.

Security Screening

So, what is screening? We hear about it a lot; some companies will call it vetting, some will call it screening, others will call it "getting references". It is essentially the process of checking a prospective employee's last five years of history to make sure there's no red flags. There's a lot of talk from outside of the industry right now with (justifiable) concern that licensed security guard Gavin Plumb was able to work within the industry with a conviction for attempted kidnap and a history of crimes against women; so without further ado, lets look at what screening somebody has to go through in order to work within the security industry.

The British Standard - BS7858

Within the UK security industry, our basic screening requirement is set out by a British Standard, BS7858, or currently BS7858:2019 to be precise. This standard tells us that we should ensure we check:

• Various identity documents to prove the candidate lives where they say they do
• 5 years of employment & education history (including self employment)
• Public record information, checking both identity and for debt which could cause a trust concern
• Whether the candidate holds any directorships, and whether they could be considered a conflict of interest
• The "financial sanctions" list.. just in case our candidate is a warlord in hiding

The standard also mentions the use of "emerging technologies" to check the suitability of a candidate; things like social media and online news media, which we check to ensure there's nothing which could be a "red flag" to employment - things like sharing propaganda from extremist organisations, or boasting about killing puppies are examples that stand out.

And that's it. That's all the British standard requires us to do; so simply speaking, as long as an employee can show us they live at their address and their previous employers confirm they were employed between x date and y date, congratulations, you're hired!

The SIA Licensing "criminality check"

When we initially apply for an SIA licence, each person working within the security industry has to undergo a DBS check as part of their licence application where the SIA will evaluate the person's criminality and make a decision based on a defined matrix as to whether that party will be granted a licence, refused a licence, or other factors may be considered. A breakdown can be found in the SIA "Get Licensed" booklet here, although in essence, anyone who has served less than a 4 year sentence is likely to be granted a licence from the point 7 years after their sentence was completed. This goes some way to explaining how Gavin Plumb was able to obtain a security licence, and work in a trade with his current employer unaware of his past.

The Flaws In Screening

If you've read this far, you're probably scratching your head as you see the holes that exist in the screening system - be it with the level we as a business are expected to screen to, or the threshold within the SIA criminality matrix. We see it too, and it frustrates us too; so here I'm going to break down what we see as the flaws of the current systems, and what we do to mitigate them.

"You can't give a bad reference"

The single biggest problem we have in "screening" a candidate is this one. Employers are so scared of comebacks nowadays that it is almost national industry policy to give a "standard reference" - something which confirms the employee worked for that business, and nothing more. No insight into their work ethic, no insight in to their personality.. just "Worked for us between x and y" - doesn't tell us a damned thing about that employment, yet satisfies the British Standard.

Sloppy Record Keeping

For this one, I'm looking at the recruitment companies among us.. you know who you are.. the ones that will use an employee for a month over summer, then leave them on their books for 18 months while they're not doing a thing for you, and when you get contacted for a reference you tell us on your "standard reference" that the employee has worked for you for 18 months - great not only does this cover the month they did work for you, but it covers the year long gap we were worried about too.. doesn't matter if they did anything during that time or not! This is a big one for us, and it's often hard to get direct answers from former employers who never "end date" their staff; and asking for the date of the candidates last shift can often result in being fobbed off or even hung up on.

No Character References

You'll notice above that personal references or character references don't feature in the British Standard BS7858:2019. These were removed from the requirement in the 2019 update to the standard because it was largely thought of that they are meaningless and can be easily cheated. Whilst it's true, these can be made up very easily, it's also true that we've turned away more candidates during screening based on CRs than anything else - whether that's highlighting dishonesty by listing the "family friend" as a referee that turns out to be your fiancée according to Facebook; accidentally being outed as the casual drug dealer of your tribe when your CR tells us how you first met them; or simply when the CR gives an honest reference and highlights your inability to be punctual and history of job-hopping for a "quick cash job".

One DBS Check in Three Years?

You'll see above that the SIA carry out a single DBS check at the start of the licensing process; this shows someone was clear at the time they applied for their licence, but doesn't appraise the SIA of what the person gets up to during the three years they hold that licence; the SIA rely on the Police to inform them of criminality carried out by licence holders which can only happen if the police are aware the person holds a licence. True story.. Around six years ago, a former employee of ours flagged up on our monthly checks as "Licence suspended" by the SIA; this had to be a mistake we thought, so our ops support contacted him to ask the question; at this point we found out that shortly after his licence being granted, the employee had been involved in an altercation and received a conviction as a result. The Police didn't know he was a licence holder (he hadn't disclosed it), and as such the SIA weren't informed that he had received a conviction. The conviction only came to light when the employee applied for his replacement licence for the next three years, which upon being discovered instantly triggered his current licence to be suspended. 

How K9 Protection do Screening

Not all security companies work in the same way, and when it comes to screening, not all security companies take it particularly seriously. How could I write this blog post in good conscience if I'm admitting that we're aware of all these problems and flaws within the system; it's simple. We take steps to mitigate them within the business; working with our candidates to ensure we're employing people that are starting with us from the right place. As stated on our last two independent ACS audits, we make a point of going over and above when it comes to screening, here's four things that we do that separate us from our competition.

The Five Year Check  

As we mentioned above; the British Standard asks that we provide a five year history of an employee. We do this to standard; but we don't simply try and fill a timeline. If a candidate has several jobs on their HMRC file that they've neglected to mention on their application, each one of those jobs will be contacted and asked for a reference. 

Whilst its' common to get a "standard reference" back from a former employer, we have a simple web form which we use to encourage the former employer to give a more meaningful reference, and occasionally we get an insight in to someone's character that we wouldn't normally have.

The Character References

When it comes to character references, we still use them - it's as simple as that. Whilst they may not be part of the standard any more, they are part of our standard, and stand a better chance of giving an insight in to someone than standardised employer references.

The DBS Check

I told you above about a situation where a guard was caught working when he shouldn't have been. Since that incident, all of our staff are signed up to the DBS monitoring service where my operations team will check their record on a monthly basis. Any anomaly will be brought to the attention of the staff member instantly so we can evaluate whether they are still suitable for the position. 

No Subcontracting

Subcontracting is rife in the security industry; ranging from the bona-fide national subcontract companies down to the bottom feeders operating in the shady world of WhatsApp groups, throwing anyone they can scramble from the internet on to any site, paying them cash in hand for below minimum wage. Quality security subcontractors are few and fare between, so to keep it simple we don't use any. We ignore the 10 AI-written emails we get each week begging us to allow these companies to fly our flag; by keeping our workforce in house, we keep control of our quality in house.

How To Choose A Security Contractor

There are so many security companies operating out there and it can be a minefield. As a company, we opted to join the Security Industry Authority's Approved Contractor scheme; something which involved our business being stress tested every twelve months by way of an external audit. I'm not saying that there aren't quality businesses outside of the Approved Contractor scheme, and similarly I'm not suggesting for one minute that every business within the Approved Contractor Scheme takes the same approach to providing a quality service as we do. What I can state is that as part of the ACS scheme, the SIA are provided with a list of our sites; they could spot check them at any time - the same cannot be said for the estimated 4000+ companies working outside of the approval system. If you decide you'd like to have a discussion with ourselves regarding your security requirements, you can contact us here; if you'd like to find out more about choosing a security contractor, the SIA have published a guide, found here