Come on SIA: explain your jail threats

I am concerned to note that the Security Industry Authority (SIA) spokesmen, in spite of the well-reported problems over the licensing rollout, are still able to threaten licensees with jail if they do not get their own licence.

Forgive me, but I thought the object of the legislation was to ensure that those who ran the door were not dangerous to the public and were properly vetted. Only recently there was an horrific story of an off-duty fireman being assaulted in Southend, which I mentioned on this page. Such incidents clearly point to a need to ensure that bad or dangerous door staff are weeded out at the earliest opportunity.

But I am still perplexed as to the reasons for the SIA's insistence that pub licensees who employ staff should themselves have a non-front-line licence, as it is called. This was never mentioned during the passage of the Bill and it only emerged when the then SIA chairman Molly Meacher put the frighteners on the licensed trade by suggesting that landlords faced a jail sentence for not being properly licensed.

I challenged the assertion at the time, but in spite of several requests Mrs Meacher and her team were not able to come up with the relevant penalties, or the connection with the licensee. I need to do the same again, it seems.

The door staff licensing scheme has got off to a shaky start. There are calls for a postponement of the final date while the industry catches up, so that there are enough badge-holding employees to go around. I should have thought that a concentration on this key element would be the most important thing the SIA could do.

Pub landlords have enough to do to cope with the new alcohol and entertainment licensing system and the quite proper requirements that they should employ licensed door staff. It does seem unnecessarily bureaucratic to persist with the view that they should also hold their own SIA licence, of whatever type.

It is clear that the legislation wants not only door staff to be licensed but also those who employ them on a business basis, such as agencies. This is very similar to the situation for the mini-cab trade, where both individual drivers and booking agencies require a licence.

But to extend this idea to the ordinary pub landlord and then to threaten him with jail for non-compliance seems too much. Come on, SIA. Explain yourselves.