As licensing hasn’t actually been introduced yet the timings and procedures for the issue of licences are still up in the air, but you can make some educated assumptions based on how the SIA currently deal with other licenced activities and the Governments response to the Home Affairs select committee report on Licensing PIs.
Firstly, the qualification itself. The Level 3 Award for Professional Investigators (L3API) awarded by awarding bodies IQ has been designed around the National Occupational Standards (NOS) identified by Skills for Security on the request of the SIA, and in 2011 the SIA confirmed its compliance with their requirements in letters to the awarding body.
The way that the SIA use qualifications for all their licenses is as proof of competence in any particular area and this is best explained by this extract from the SIA Close Protection Training - Exemption Arrangements:
Close protection operatives may seek to have their prior training taken into account, regardless of nationality. This process is known as 'Recognition of Prior Learning' (RPL).
All of the awarding organisations offering the qualifications we require for close protection licensing have a policy on RPL. You should:
· contact any of the training providers offering SIA licence-linked training;
· ask them to consider your previous learning under their RPL policy.
Please ensure that you have evidence of your prior training and qualifications when you contact the training provider. They will be able to advise you on whether you should undertake refresher training or a full course.
It is important to ensure that training remains current. Therefore, qualifications allowing exemption from the SIA approved training must be no more than three years old. All candidates must take the knowledge test and practical skills assessment.
If you have completed formal close protection training from the organisations listed below and have remained in an operational close protection role, you will not have to undertake further training. You will still be required to take the knowledge test and a practical skills assessment.
· Special Air Service regiment Body Guard Course
· Royal Military Police Close Protection Course
· Metropolitan Police Royalty Protection/Special Branch Close Protection Course
· Police National Close Protection Courses including Northern Ireland
We strongly recommend that you consider attending a 24 hour refresher course. If you have been trained in a police or military environment you may find the terminology and procedures to be different in a civilian context.
Link to above web page: http://www.sia.homeoffice.gov.uk/Pages/training-exemption-cp.aspx
As you can see, they are still required to "take the knowledge test and practical skills assessment.” (the BOLD writing is put there by the SIA as it continues to be a massive bone of contention) regardless of your background or prior qualifications.
This standard is the same throughout the Licenced linked activities (Security guarding, cash in transit, door supervision etc) they all, regardless of background and qualification, still have to sit and pass the knowledge check. There is nothing to suggest that the licensing of PIs will be any different especially when you read the Government response to the HASC investigation in to Private Investigations:
"As part of the SIA’s licensing criteria, all private investigators applying for a licence to conduct private investigation activities, would need to attend and successfully complete competency training. Such competency training would require an applicant to have the skills and knowledge to conduct investigations; conduct interviews; search for information and preserve evidence; conduct surveillance; and understand, and work to, relevant laws and standards.”
Link to above document: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/home-affairs/32420-Cm-8691-v1.pdf
As for the 'Recognition of Prior Learning' (RPL) process, this involve proving that your current qualifications maps the learning outcomes of the L3API by use of a portfolio and a mapping exercise carried out by the student and training provider. This is then assessed by the Awarding body that it fits the criteria before allowing the student to take the test. So you still have to sit the exam anyway!
A fairly onerous system that we do provide, but it costs about the same as the L3API e-learning course.(in fact a little more because of the time and work involved for us as training providers)
Although we have often offer it to ex-police officers and people with the ACFS they have all opted for our second option which is to take the e-learning course and ‘Revise what you know, Study what you don’t’.