Bouncers and Bodyguards (24 page)

Occasionally, as part of the customer services element of the job, door supervisors may be required to administer first aid to anyone who becomes ill or injured on the premises before medical help arrives. They are also required to patrol the premises and to look out for fire hazards or suspicious packages, and need to be able to carry out basic emergency procedures if problems occur. They now have to be aware of basic heath-and-safety rules and must help the licensee to ensure that the venue is safe enough to be open to the public. Whilst fulfilling all of these functions, door supervisors are also required to be pleasant and polite so that the customers feel welcome. They therefore need to use effective communication and social skills in everything that they do.

The basic job requirements of modern-day door supervisors are much more than they were only twenty years ago, a point reflected in the four-day basic training programme that all entrants to the game need to complete prior to applying for their licence to work in the industry. Door supervisors basically ‘police’ a venue on behalf of its management.

Some door supervisors work for large leisure organisations, some for leisure security companies and others are classed as in-house, meaning that they are hired or employed directly by the licensee of the premises. Some work at pubs or in wine bars, some at clubs and others at restaurants, casinos, amusement arcades and even cinemas. Some door supervisors work part time, some full time and others only occasionally at one-off events. Some of this work is done legitimately with the appropriate tax and national insurance being paid to the treasury; some of it is still done cash in hand and without the proper declaration of earnings.

It is difficult to give an accurate figure of how many door supervisors there are working in the UK at present. Back in 1999, I carried out some research for the Home Office on the subject and from that estimated that there were about 100,000. However, under the current national licensing system, only 86,000 door supervisors have been granted an SIA licence (statistic dated August 2007), although double that figure have sat for the qualifications required to gain a licence.

In 1999, I carried out a nationwide survey on the door supervision sector, interviewing 500 door supervisors. That research showed that 93 per cent of door supervisors were male and covered a fairly wide age range. About 75 per cent of door supervisors at that time classed themselves as ‘white European’, with 49 per cent of them educated to just O Level standard.

As local registration schemes had already come into force in about two-thirds of England and Wales, we asked the candidates what they preferred to call themselves. Over half (54 per cent) called themselves ‘door supervisors’, with 31 per cent preferring the term ‘doorman’. Only 3 per cent used the term ‘bouncer’. One interviewee described himself as an ‘ejection technician’ and two called themselves ‘in-house behavioural therapists’! Only 27 per cent said that they worked full time as a door supervisor, 72 per cent claiming part time only (1 per cent failed to answer the question).

When asked why they worked the doors, 27 per cent said they did so as their primary source of income, 52 per cent explained that they did so to supplement their day job, 7 per cent to supplement state benefits and 10 per cent to help pay them through further education. When asked how long they had been working as a door supervisor, 21 per cent said for less than a year, 45 per cent for between one and five years, 16 per cent for six to ten years and only 6 per cent said that they had been in the door game for more than 15 years. Of those surveyed, 36 per cent said that they were employed in-house by the venue, and 62 per cent said that they worked for a leisure security company.

At the time of the survey, 76 per cent were registered with one or more of the local-authority door-supervisor registration schemes, and 71 per cent of those surveyed said that they thought that such schemes were a good idea. Out of the 500 door supervisors surveyed, 90 per cent wanted to see a national registration or licensing scheme brought in. It would be interesting to see whether the SIA national licensing system has changed people’s opinions.

In the late 1980s and early ’90s, various forward-thinking local authorities and police forces started their own door-supervisor registration schemes. These schemes enabled them to vet, train and monitor the activities of their local pub and club doormen. These schemes were set up with the intention of:

About 65 per cent of England and Wales was covered by one registration scheme or another by the year 2000, and these schemes were hailed as a great success. Areas that had initiated such schemes saw a reduction in problems on licensed premises, particularly those involving door staff, with police forces all over the UK boasting impressive reductions in relevant crimes in those districts.

The only problem with these local registration schemes was that each area decided on its own vetting criteria, training criteria, licensing system and costs. For example, in London many door supervisors who worked for leisure security companies found themselves in the situation that they had to apply and pay for several different licences to cover them to work in several different areas. I once met a doorman in London who was the proud owner of 17 local authority licences!

As the result of calls from the press, the public and the industry itself, the government decided to regulate the whole of the UK private security industry, and in 2001 the Private Security Industry Act was passed, which allowed the Home Office to form a new independent body to bring about a national licensing system for people and companies in the security sector. As well as issuing licences, that body also became responsible for raising standards of training and professionalism across the industry and to reassure the public by preventing unsuitable people from carrying out security work. That body is called the SIA.

In March 2004, the SIA opened its doors for business. Door supervisors were now able to apply for a licence, and the initial requirement was that every single doorman, whether they worked in-house or for a security company, was to be licensed by April 2005. That deadline was extended several times, but it is now illegal for anyone to work in a security role without a licence on licensed premises anywhere in England and Wales. (Licensing has recently been launched in Scotland and will be followed up in the years to come in Northern Ireland.)

To get an SIA licence, applicants have to attend the national four-day basic training programme, which must be held by an awarding-body-approved training centre, leading to the national Level 2 qualification in door supervision. Once applicants have received their formal training qualification certificate, they can submit their application form to the SIA with a payment of £245 and an accompanying identification document. A criminal record check is then conducted and ‘suitable’ applicants are issued with their three-year SIA door supervisors’ licence. This licence allows them to work legally on any licensed premises in the UK until such time as that licence either runs out or is suspended or revoked.

The basic licence-to-practice qualification is run over four days. The SIA does not run training courses, give qualifications or provide funding. Instead, it has endorsed awarding bodies who offer the qualifications linked to SIA licensing, and those awarding bodies approve the training providers. The awarding bodies currently overseeing door supervisor qualifications include NOCN, BIIAB, ASET, City and Guilds, Edexcel and the SQA (in Scotland). Awarding body details can be found on the SIA’s website, as can a list of regionally based training providers. The basic door course costs between £150 and £250, depending on the area and the training provider.

The four-day course is split into two parts. Part one (two days) is all about a door supervisor’s responsibilities and duties in the workplace. The second part (two days) covers communication skills and conflict management. There is a multiple-choice exam at the end of each part, and you have to pass both parts to get the full qualification.

The subjects covered in the training include: introducing door supervisors to the leisure and security industries; defining the role of the door supervisor and identifying the qualities required to be one; discussing the behaviour appropriate for individual door supervisors using the SIA standards of behaviour; and discussing and identifying civil and criminal law relevant to door supervision, e.g. what is meant by ‘reasonable’ and ‘necessary force’, the requirements relating to the use of force, types of assault, etc. Also, door supervisors’ powers of arrest, offences, procedures following an arrest and search procedures are covered, as is drugs awareness, recording incidents, crime scene preservation, licensing law, equal opportunities and discrimination, health and safety at work, emergency procedures, communication skills, and conflict management.

There has been much debate over the last few years as to how well the new national licensing system is working. Some people complain that the licence application process is difficult and takes too long, while others complain that it is too expensive. Many people are disappointed at how the new laws are being enforced, with many questioning why there are still so many unlicensed doormen working in pubs and clubs. Some leisure security companies complain that there are not enough decent, experienced doormen available to fulfil their contracts. Others say that the industry is being overtaken by inexperienced ‘jacket fillers’ who simply can’t do the job properly.

The SIA, on the other hand, will tell us that there is broad compliance with the new regulations, that the system has turned away many unsuitable characters from the industry and that it has raised standards of competence and professionalism thanks to the new training regime.

I personally spent a lot of my own time many years ago campaigning for a national registration scheme for door supervisors. We have one now – it’s not ideal, and there are many things that need to be changed before it ‘does what it says on the tin’, but things will hopefully improve. In the meantime, just remember, ‘If your name’s not down, you’re not coming in!’

Andy Walker, a former police officer, has nearly 20 years’ experience in the world of door supervision. In 1990, whilst a ‘moonlighting’ policeman, Andy worked the doors in London’s Notting Hill. At the same time, he started London’s first police-run door-supervisors registration scheme. He was invited to help write the first set of national occupational standards for the sector and trained hundreds of doormen for various schemes in and around London.

In 2001, Andy published the well-known
Safer Doors
, a 356-page training handbook for doormen, which has sold 10,000 copies to date. He is currently busy writing the second edition. Also that year, he ran the first ‘Safer Doors Conference’, a national conference specifically for the door game.

In 2002, Andy left the police force to work for a national door company as their training director, and in 2003 he became a consultant for the newly formed SIA, specifically advising on door supervisors. At the same time, he was still working the doors in East Yorkshire and various other parts of northern England.

Andy now runs his own security training company, teaching not only the SIA qualifications but several bespoke accredited training courses aimed at keeping front-line security operatives safe in the workplace. These include the only accredited plastic handcuffing course for security personnel and the new Offender ID Spray training programme.

You can contact Andy at [email protected] or go to the Working the Doors website, where he is regularly found discussing the industry with fellow doormen around the country.

He has never said, ‘’ello, ’ello, ’ello, what’s going on ’ere, then?’

B
efore the story starts, I must stress that just because my name happens to be Badly, it doesn’t mean that I have lived up to it in my professional life. But I hesitate somewhat when it comes to categorising my personal life in a similar vein, as it has not always been good; in fact, ‘badly’ is probably quite a good word for how my personal life has unfolded since entering the business of celebrity protection 15 years ago. You see, celebrity protection is very different to corporate protection. The challenges are different, as are, of course, the risks, but mainly it is the environment in which we work that makes family life and long-term relationships almost impossible.