Changes to the core competencies for Door Supervisor training

From July 2010 we will see changes to SIA licence-linked training requirements for people who want to work in door security. The SIA have taken a very tentative step forward in introducing ‘physical interventions’ training. A one-day course in techniques for holding, disengaging and escorting will become one of the requirements. With health and safety in mind, and with a number of high-profile cases where door supervisors have found themselves on the receiving end of a manslaughter charge as a result of deaths from ‘positional asphyxiation’ (holding them down and depressing the chest cavity), the aim is to introduce techniques that are compatible with law and apply the principle of minimum force.

The fact is that door supervisors are frequently the victims of assault and the physical intervention techniques being taught are only going to work on compliant or semi-compliant subjects. If a drunken or drug-intoxicated person wriggles free from a ‘hook-and-turn’ technique, and offers serious violence, the physical interventions being taught will not tell the door supervisor what to do next!

The new physical interventions training will not only apply to new applicants for the SIA door security licence, but also to existing door supervisors when they come to renew their existing licence.