SIA licensing and BS 7858 screening: what to check before officers start

Two things get conflated constantly. A licence is not vetting, and vetting is not a licence.

Buyers routinely treat an SIA licence and BS 7858 screening as the same assurance. They are not, and the difference matters if something goes wrong on your site.

What an SIA licence is

The Security Industry Authority licenses individuals to carry out specific licensable activities — manned guarding, door supervision, key-holding, CCTV operation and others. To hold one, an individual has passed the relevant qualification and an identity and criminality check at the point of application.

A licence is checkable. The SIA maintains a public register, and any client can verify an individual licence number. It is worth doing rather than accepting a photocopy.

What BS 7858 screening is

BS 7858 is the British Standard for security screening of individuals working in environments where the safety of people, goods or property is at risk. It is an employer process, not a licence, and it goes considerably further than the SIA check.

• Verified identity and right to work
• A five-year employment and education history, with every gap over a set length accounted for and evidenced
• References taken up and confirmed, not just collected
• A criminal record check appropriate to the role
• Financial checks where the role warrants them

What to ask a security contractor

• Is screening complete before an officer attends site, or completed afterwards while they work?
• How are licences verified — against the SIA register, or from a copy the officer supplied?
• How is licence expiry tracked, and what happens on the day one lapses?
• Are officers directly employed or supplied through an agency, and if agency, who screened them?
• What happens when you cannot resource a shift — is the honest answer that you tell us?

That last question is the useful one. Every security contractor has occasional resourcing problems. The ones worth working with tell you rather than sending somebody who has never seen the building.