Industry Concerns – Business Approval Scheme 30 September 2026

The Security Guarding Leadership Group (S12) respond to the development of the Business Approval Scheme (BAS):

The S12 strongly support the Security Industry Authority’s objective of raising standards across the private security industry and strengthening public protection. Having now considered the emerging design of BAS, the group remains concerned that BAS, in its current form, does not represent a meaningful improvement on the Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS).

The consistent view within the group is that a threshold‑based approval model risks replicating long‑standing issues within ACS – specifically, that businesses meeting only minimum compliance may still be perceived by buyers as “high quality.” Without a mechanism to differentiate excellence, innovation, and best practice, BAS is unlikely to influence buyer behaviour or procurement decision‑making.

The view within the group is that BAS is administrative and governance‑influenced rather than genuinely quality‑led. As previously described, BAS does not provide the transparency, granularity, or comparative metrics required to distinguish high‑performing organisations from those meeting basic regulatory expectations.

Comment:

Large sections of the industry remain unconvinced by BAS. Many view the scheme as a backward step rather than an improvement. To gain meaningful industry support, the SIA will need to implement changes to the scheme. The S12 wrote to the SIA in June outlining these concerns, and the absence of a response remains notable.