Foreword by the Chairman and Chief Executive
Our new strategic plan for the three years 2026-2028 comes at an important time for the Private Security Authority. Established in 2004, the Private Security Authority has spent the last two decades in its important establishment and growth phases. It has sequentially brought sectors within licensing, in the process setting standards and promoting professionalism in the private security industry. We currently have 15 sectors under licence. Over the coming three years we will work to advance licensing to the remaining sectors as mandated by the legislation.
As a still relatively young organisation, the Private Security Authority is cognisant of the need to achieve greater awareness amongst the public of the work it does. It will be important that more resources are directed towards communications and promoting knowledge of what is regulated by the Private Security Authority and of how we conduct our operations and ensure compliance. It will also be important that the Private Security Authority raises its profile amongst licence holders and the general public. We will achieve that by developing a new communications strategy and through initiatives such as increasing our participation in multi-agency inspections.
Over the term of this Strategic Plan, the Private Security Authority will promote professional standards and practice improvement. It will do this by working in partnership with the industry to continuously enhance professional competence and standards. That will include identifying the scope for enhancement in both assessing licence holder suitability and undertaking probity checks and in the auditing assessment and certification process. We will work to update standards where updates are needed and will review our standard development processes to make them more efficient. Working with those involved in security guarding, we will evaluate leading practice and consider enhancement to the initial training as well as the need for continuous improvement as careers progress. Beyond that, we will increase awareness of the tangible benefits of diversity to encourage greater inclusivity in contractor recruitment, promotion and the deployment of personnel.
As we move from establishment to consolidation, achieving operational transformation though the delivery of efficiencies and enhanced effectiveness will be a top priority. The Private Security Authority has been hindered by legacy technology and not well positioned to modernise processes. It is vital that we be able to deliver a better experience to both our licence holders and our staff. Over the timeframe of this plan we will introduce new ICT systems to transform the manner in which we licence, regulate, and produce and use management information. In tandem with the introduction of the new technology we will systematically identify and deploy solutions to enhance our administrative efficiency through process redesign, ICT enablement and effective system integration. We will look to ICT and AI solutions to better target inspections, streamline inspection processes, and to improve both our inspection capacity and reporting.
The staff of the Private Security Authority are at the heart of what we do. Our Strategic Plan 2026-2028 can only be delivered through our team of people. Over the next three years we will develop and leverage our shared expertise to successfully deliver our mandate while meeting our stakeholders’ expectations. We have knowledgeable and engaged staff, and a good organisational culture. These qualities though cannot be taken for granted. We need to preserve and further develop what is good about our organisation as it enters and goes through a time of operational transformation. Concurrent with this 3-year strategic plan, we will have a resource plan that makes clear what we need to enable us to achieve these stretching objectives.
Regulation of the private security industry is important. Stakeholders agree that the Private Security Authority has brought significant improvements to the Irish security industry over the last two decades. Together with our industry stakeholders we will continue to protect the public and raise standards, increase awareness and enforce compliance. The Private Security Authority has benefitted greatly since establishment from the support of the Minister and the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, An Garda Síochána, the security industry, and many others. Our Strategic Plan 2026-2028 stretches the ambition of the Authority and implementation will require that support to continue.
