The Control Room: Issue 12

This one stays on the floor. The thread running through the issue is simple: write it down, own it, be able to show it. The regulator took a suspended operative to court, a new complaints clock started ticking, and there is a handover habit that quietly decides who carries the blame. Nothing here waits on a consultation. Practical, do it on shift.

The SIA prosecuted a Cardiff door supervisor for working while his licence was suspended. He pleaded guilty at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court on 2 July and was ordered to pay £374. Small sum, big signal: the regulator will take an individual to court over licence status alone, and it sits inside a wider enforcement push that saw officers inspect hundreds of licensed premises last month.

Alongside it, the SIA’s updated ACS guidance from 1 July now expects operatives on regulated activity to be employees, or employees for tax purposes. If you place staff, check how they are engaged, not just that they are licensed.

Bottom line: licence status and employment status are both enforcement targets now, not back-office paperwork.

Since 19 June, the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 puts a hard duty on every controller, with no exemptions. If someone complains about how you handled their personal data, you must acknowledge it within 30 days, investigate without undue delay, and keep a record: when it arrived, when you acknowledged it, what you did, and the outcome. Your privacy notice and your responses to data requests must also tell people they have the right to complain.

For a control room this is not abstract. It covers how you dealt with a CCTV subject access request and how securely you hold footage and logs. An auditor will want to see the log, not take your word for it.

Fix: stand up a dated complaints log this week, with the 30-day acknowledgement clock built in, and add the right-to-complain line to your privacy notice.

A while back we kept losing overnight deliveries on a client floor. The break was never the delivery itself. It was the informal handoff: an officer left an item with a cleaner who said she would store it, then forgot. No record, no trail, and the client carried the complaint. The rule now: the officer stores it and logs it.

Fix: a task is not done until it is done and recorded by the person who owns it. If a handoff is unavoidable, log it, do not just say it.

If you hold or plan two SIA licences, say Door Supervisor and CCTV, the 50% discount on the second one now applies only when you apply for both on the same day, on the same form. Since 1 June, split the applications and you pay full price for the second. Full detail: SIA fee changes

Thanks for reading. If you found this useful, forward it to one colleague who would benefit. That is how this grows.

Until next Tuesday.

Documents I use on shift: the Daily Occurrence Book and the Incident Report Form. BS 7499 aligned, edit and ship same day. Both from SecureDocUK.

Andras

Control Room Supervisor & Deputy Security Operations Manager

The Control Room