Updates to SIA licensing criteria taking effect on 1 December
Source: gov.uk (2025-10-02)

The SIA will be updating the conditions and criteria it uses for licensing decisions on 1 December 2025.

The new criteria will further toughen the SIA’s approach to criminality and provide greater transparency on the wider ‘fit and proper’ test that all applicants and licence holders must meet.

The SIA will expand the list of criminal offences it considers relevant in its licensing decisions. The updated list will include a wider range of offences that affect whether someone is considered ‘fit and proper’ to hold a licence, such as modern slavery, people trafficking, and upskirting.

The SIA will also be updating its criminality criteria. The changes will include:
- Further tightening the rules around refusing a licence where an applicant has any criminal record that includes a sexual offence, child abuse or neglect offence, or a prison sentence of more than 48 months. The SIA already gives careful consideration to applications involving these offences and is proposing to refuse all such applications in future unless the applicant can convince the SIA that they are not a public protection risk.
- Applying a tougher approach to custodial sentences of more than 12 months where additional checks and mitigation will be required to demonstrate that the applicant is fit and proper to hold a licence.
- Requiring applicants who have lived overseas for 6 or more continuous months in the last ten years to provide an overseas criminal record check when they apply for an SIA licence. At present this requirement only covers the last five years. The change brings the SIA’s rules more in line with the criminality checks required for UK visas where someone will be working in education, health or social care.
- Making clearer the broad range of other information that the SIA may consider when deciding whether someone is ‘fit and proper’ to hold a licence – for example, for domestic violence orders or being subject to misconduct or other disciplinary proceedings.
The new criteria will be applied to all licence applications from 1 December 2025.

All applicants for an SIA licence should check the licensing criteria to see if they are likely to be eligible for a licence before they start the application process. This includes licence holders applying to renew their licence.

Further guidance and information will be provided to licence holders and applicants before the new criteria take effect, including on the SIA website.

Consultation

The SIA will be introducing the new criteria following a wide-reaching public consultation on the proposed changes between March and May 2025 that received over 3,300 responses. The results of the consultation found strong support for the proposals among SIA licence holders and private security businesses.

These results were presented to the Minister for Security, who announced the changes to the SIA’s criteria on 1 October at the International Security Expo.

Tim Archer, SIA Director of Licensing and Standards, said:

The SIA’s current robust licensing processes help ensure public trust and confidence in the private security industry. These changes will further strengthen these processes and support our drive to improve standards within the industry.

Read the findings of the consultation (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposed-changes-to-the-sias-licensing-criteria-get-licensed) and more details about the changes (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-sia-is-updating-its-licensing-criteria).

Background

The SIA uses rules called “criteria” to decide whether to grant a licence. These criteria are also used when the SIA applies its powers under the Private Security Industry Act 2001 to revoke, suspend or modify a licence. Section 7 of the Act requires the SIA to publish a document setting out these criteria. Get Licensed (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sia-get-licensed) is that document. Section 7 of the Act also requires the SIA to get these criteria and (any changes to them) approved by the Secretary of State for the Home Office.

What the SIA considers when assessing criminality

The SIA will always obtain a criminal record check for anyone who applies for a licence. Having a criminal record does not necessarily mean that an applicant will not get a licence. However, any convictions, warnings, cautions, community resolutions, absolute or conditional discharges, admonishments, or charges awaiting trial for offences will be taken into consideration.

Get Licensed includes a list of relevant offences that the SIA will take into consideration in licensing decisions. The criteria say that if an applicant’s record includes a relevant offence, the licensing decision depends on:
- the actual sentence or disposal imposed by the court, and
- when sentencing restrictions ended.
The SIA only considers certain offences relevant to its licensing decisions. This is because the SIA must ensure its decisions are targeted to the threat to public it seeks to address. As a proportionate regulator it also allows for rehabilitation.

The offences that the SIA considers are the ones that relate to threats to public safety, dishonesty, and other behaviour that suggests someone is not fit and proper to work in the regulated private security industry.

The SIA may consider any criminal offence relevant if it believes that an applicant or licence holder’s conviction for that offence is pertinent to whether they are fit and proper to hold a licence.

The fact that an offence has not been in the list previously has not stopped the SIA from considering it relevant in appropriate circumstances. This approach follows the licensing criteria approved by ministers under the terms of the Private Security Industry Act 2001.

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