Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of implementing a fee waiver for Security Industry Authority licences for security officers on a low income.

The Security Industry Authority’s licence application fee is fixed in accordance with Schedule 1, section 15(1) of the Private Security Industry Act 2001, which states that the SIA should set its application fees at a level suitable to enable full recovery of costs incurred in delivering its activities, without seeking to make profits.

Any variation to waive or vary fees for one cohort would essentially require the SIA to recoup these costs from other applicants or would result in a loss that the taxpayer would subsidise. Some employers and security businesses operate schemes to either pay for the licence fee and/or support their employees to spread repayment of the costs over a longer period of time.