Licensing Criteria and Eligibility
What eligibility really means
A licence to supply private security services is granted to a person, not to a company, and the SIA assesses that person against published criteria. For physical intervention roles the applicant must normally be 18 or older. Age is a hard gate: a 17-year-old cannot be licensed however mature or well trained, so read the stem carefully for the date the applicant turns 18 versus the date of application.
The core criteria are: the applicant must be a fit and proper person; must hold or be working towards the relevant qualification for the licence type applied for; must meet the right to work requirement; and must not be barred from holding a licence. Barring is the trap area. A person is barred where they have been convicted of a relevant offence and received a sentence of imprisonment of 12 months or more, or where they are subject to certain criminal justice orders (for example a violent or sexual offences prevention order). Note that the 12-month test looks at the sentence imposed, not the time actually served, and a suspended sentence still counts as a sentence of imprisonment.
Traps to expect
- Confusing licence types: door supervision, security guarding, close protection, CCTV and key holding are separate; physical intervention skills sit within the door supervision and guarding contexts, so a question may ask which licence a role needs.
- Thinking a company holds the licence. It does not; individuals do, and the business must be SIA-approved to supply licensed staff.
- Assuming a spent conviction is automatically irrelevant. The SIA applies its own barring rules regardless of rehabilitation periods.
Rule of thumb
Ask three questions in order: Is the person old enough? Do they have the right to work? Does any conviction or order bar them? Only if all three pass do you move on to qualification and application mechanics.
Worked example
An applicant was sentenced to 14 months' imprisonment, suspended for two years. They argue the sentence was never served. The 12-month bar still applies, because the sentence imposed exceeded 12 months.