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If your license is delayed beyond whatever time scales the SIA are currently reporting, it seems that the best action you can take is to threaten to sue them for loss of earnings.
Below is the letter I sent them. I got my license the day after they received the letter. I suggest writing a letter along these lines and sending it recorded delivery.
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Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to notify you of my intention to sue the SIA for loss of earnings and other incurred costs due to the negligent processing of my licence application in which there have been unnecessary and inexplicable delays.
I am a licensed Door Supervisor (licence number xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx) and in July applied for my Close Protection Licence. By July 13th I had received a letter from yourselves accepting my application. By July 28th I had received my CRB disclosure. By August 2nd your web site tracker showed that my Criminality Checks had been completed. It is here that the problems started. I have no criminal record whatsoever and therefore the granting of my licence from this point should have taken a matter of days. It was not until 8th August that my application was forwarded to SIA Head Office for final decision. On 20th August I phoned the call centre in Newcastle and was told that it would take another two weeks. On 29th August I phoned the call centre again and was told that ‘It shouldn’t have taken this long, I’ll chase it up, phone back in 10 working days.’ I stressed that I was loosing work due to this delay but was told that it would be chased up and I should phone back in 10 days if I hadn’t heard anything. On 17th September I phoned the call centre again and was told that they had chased it up and could not give me an timescale for it being completed and I should phone back in another 10 days.
Since 29th August I have contacted my MP, Trading Standards and the Community Law Centre. I will be suing you for the cost of phone calls, stamps etc. I have regularly checked the website tracker and will be suing you for the cost of internet usage. I have phoned the call centre as described only to be misinformed as to processing times and told to phone back only to be misinformed again. I will be suing you for the cost of phone calls. This week I have lost out on contracts worth £400. I am now applying to companies and will be asking them to supply me with the details of any jobs that I would be eligible for if you had processed my licence. I will be suing you for loss of earnings in relation to this. You are in breach of the Human Rights Act in denying, without good reason, me my ability to work in a profession for which I am qualified.
I feel that in a court you will have problems justifying why you take longer to issue a licence than other agencies do to issue Driving Licences or Passports and yet charge far more. Indeed the CRB check itself costs around £50 and is completed faster than you have taken simply to accept that someone with no criminal record and a current licence can have a licence for another sector.
I will be going to my local County Court today to commence proceedings. However, I will not proceed with this claim if my licence is granted by Thursday and the licence itself arrives within one week of that date.
Yours Sincerely
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