There’s nothing ‘new’ about SITO’s latest scheme

SIR – IT WAS WITH A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF disbelief that I read the Career Development article submitted by Noel Sargent for your January edition (‘SITO’s Management Certification Scheme’, p52). After I finished reading the piece, I laughed. Then I decided to put pen to paper and correct the many factual errors contained therein.

Perhaps a good place to start would be to point out that there are already several well-known – and accredited – security management qualifications which have been in place for many years. The fact that all are open to the public and none of them are offered by SITO may have led Noel to overlook them, but many have been recognised by the Security Industry Authority (SIA) and are duly included in the Core Competency Standards.

Some of the management qualifications now on offer include:

• City & Guilds Certificate in Security Management;
• NCFE Diploma in Security Management (this also provides credits for higher university courses);
• BTEC Certificate in Security Management;
• ASIS Certified Protection Professional (CPP) qualification;
• ACFE Certified Fraud Examiner qualification.

From Noel’s article I note that the whole Management Certification Scheme should be completed in a period of between six and 12 months. I cannot speak for every one of the qualifications listed above, but the City & Guilds Certificate takes just seven months to attain (even when studied on a distance learning regime). It would be interesting to compare the prices of these qualifications.

It might be down to my misreading of the aims of the new SITO scheme, but I cannot help thinking that The Security Institute offers a service that evaluates current management training and experience. This service has been recognised by the SIA and been in existence for several years now, but was also missing from Noel’s article.

On a slightly different note, I would like to mention that SITO – in the guise of its director, Stefan Hay – has publicly endorsed both the NCFE and City & Guilds qualifications during the past two-to-three years. During that time, any enquiries forwarded to SITO concerning management qualifications have been referred to the appropriate colleges for the NCFE/City & Guilds awards. I cannot begin to understand how Noel forgot his own organisation’s policy on this matter!

Come on Noel. Is SITO afraid to acknowledge that the so-called ‘new’ scheme introduces old ideas to a marketplace already crammed with security management qualifications? I cannot believe that Security Management Today would wish such a biased and inaccurate piece to pass by unanswered.

SIR – FIRST OF ALL, THANK YOU FOR allowing SITO the chance to respond to Nicholas O’Connor’s Letter To The Editor.

In September 2002, the (then) newly-appointed Management Team at SITO decided that its primary objective would be to truly focus on the educational needs of the sector, address the historical concerns of its stakeholders, elevate misconceptions and difficulties where necessary and work in partnership with industry to raise standards in training and qualifications on a unilateral basis.

In doing so, we now partner numerous organisations that share our ethos and vision – including, of course, the Security Industry Authority.

In the absence of a Sector Skills Council, SITO remains the National Occupational Standards-setting body for the industry and, as such, we applaud and support any organisation that is committed to the Continued Professional Development of people in the security sector. We have Service Level Agreements with the National Open College Network, City & Guilds and the SQA, have supported BTEC in its qualification submissions to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and fully endorse the City & Guilds and NCFE qualifications offered by the International Institute of Security.

As Nicholas states in his letter, we have indeed forwarded enquiries from potential students to The Caltrop Consultancy, who we believe continue to manage the qualifications on the Institute’s behalf. We have also worked – and continue to work – with a number of universities and colleges on developing further and higher level qualifications for the sector and, most recently, we’ve assisted ASIS International in its search for a UK-based Awarding Body partner. Most of these projects result in no commercial benefit to SITO.

The security industry potentially employs 800,000 people across numerous, eclectic sectors. We recognise that many people and organisations are committed to raising the levels of competency in the sector, and that many people become very passionate in relation to their specific areas of expertise. However, now more than ever we have a collective (and major) educational task on our hands, so let us focus our passions and work together to promote new concepts and opportunities as opposed to being critical of them.

SITO’s Management Certification Scheme is one example of working together in partnership, and was developed as a result of an identified need pinpointed by the Institute of Security Management and a number of companies and individuals operating in the sector.

We believe that the Career Development article in January’s Security Management Today is accurate and very clear in describing the aims of the scheme. In no way does it detract from the many outstanding qualifications aimed at security and risk management professionals that are already on offer.

The route to educating oneself is a matter of personal choice. At SITO, we believe the more routes available to security practitioners the better.

Stefan Hay MSyI MInstD MISecM, Director, SITO