Written question asked by Lord Pickles (Conservative) on Friday, 24 March 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 28 March 2006. It was answered by Lord Coaker (Labour) on Tuesday, 25 July 2006 on behalf of the Home Office.

Security Industry

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of persons engaged in the security industry (a) requiring a licence and (b) in receipt of a licence.

Answer: The Security Industry Authority’s most recent estimate is that about 183,000 individuals require a licence to work in the private security industry. As at 5 July, the SIA had accepted 162,452 complete applications, granted 119,653 licences, and refused 4,231. The remaining 38,568 applications were in the SIA’s processing system. There are also 213 companies with Approved Contractor Status that are able to legally deploy a proportion of their staff while their licence applications are being processed, who are between them legally deploying about 15,000 staff.

Secondary information