Professionalisation Is a Governance Question, Not a Training Debate

Introduction: The Reform Reflex

In the private security industry as a whole, a common pattern of reform is evident. A major operational failure happens. Public interest is heightened. Political demands escalate. Consequently, training requirements are stepped up, training courses must be taken, and training hours are extended.

This assumption seems sensible. Failure equates to a lack of competency. Therefore, competency must be enhanced through additional training.

However, this approach, although superficially obvious, does not necessarily guarantee a solid base for stability.

Professionalisation is not a training issue. Professionalisation is a governance issue.

Until this is grasped, the pattern of reform will not change.

Training as Instrument, Governance as System

Education and training provide the tools of knowledge transfer. Governance is the mechanism that authorises, bounds, validates, and sanctions knowledge transfer.

Clearly, the theory of professional jurisdiction proposed by Andrew Abbott highlights that professions do not simply stabilise authority through education but through the controlled relationship between knowledge, work, and institutional recognition (Abbott, 1988). It is not education that creates jurisdiction; rather, it is governance that creates jurisdiction.

Eliot Freidson also highlights that professionalism reflects a unique model of work organisation that is supported through authoritative standards and institutional autonomy rather than market forces or bureaucratic control (Freidson, 2001). Professional authority is where there is regulation through the system and discipline.

Professions are not built through education; professions are built through architecture.

If the sole emphasis of the proposed reforms is on the expansion of the curriculum, then the system will remain the same but the input will be enhanced

"The More Training" Illusion

This assumption that more training hours equal more professionalisation is based on the idea that there is an “organisational professionalism” in which the language of professionalism is used rhetorically without structural change to support it (Evetts, 2011).

What can training achieve?

• Increase knowledge exposure
• Standardise procedural awareness
• Improve baseline compliance

 

What training can’t achieve?

• Define jurisdiction
• Separate regulatory functions
• Establish independent oversight
• Provide proportional authority
• Protect public legitimacy

 

Professionalisation can only be achieved if there is a clear separation of institutional functions such as education, licencing, employment, and discipline to avoid any conflicts of interest and establish a clear sense of trust.

This can be seen in all professions.

Universities provide education.

Separate licencing bodies.

Employers provide employment.

Separate disciplinary bodies.

Separation = no ambiguity

Governance as Institutional Design

Governance is more than the management of administration; it is the design of institutional relationships that frame authority.

Noordegraaf (2015) found that professionalism has become hybrid, with professionalism functioning in institutional ecosystems where governance structures frame legitimacy.

Authority must be explicitly bounded and structurally validated.

Many private security ecosystems have a compressed model of key governance activities, which include the following:

• Training providers certify
• Employers validate readiness
• Regulators enforce minimum licensing requirements
• Ethical oversight may be internalized

 

This creates ambiguity in the structure.

When the same structure is responsible for training, validating, employing, and disciplining, the structure loses independence.

Professional systems require differentiation.

Professional systems that lack differentiation make accountability tenuous

Recurring Failure and Structural Compression

Security governance studies have consistently pointed to fragmentation as the key failing in the regulation of private security (Gill, 2014). In the context of the pluralisation of security, legitimacy must be institutionally created rather than discursively claimed (Loader & Walker, 2007).

While increasing training demands in a fragmented system may improve competence exposure, this does not necessarily address the issue of jurisdictional clarity.

Failure is recurrent not due to a lack of instruction but due to a lack of structural clarity.

Governing reform cycles that exclusively address the quantity of instruction can lead to the neglect of:

• Undefined scope of practice
• Lack of tiered authority
• Inadequate progression model
• Lack of independent ethical control

 

Instructional reform is the ‘visible reform.’ True reform occurs structurally.

Authority Inflation Without Structural Scaling

Modern security practitioners' function in a converged world that includes:

• Surveillance authority
• Intelligence management
• Behavioural risk assessment
• Critical infrastructure protection
• Delegated coercive authority

 

Thus, as authority increases, the depth of governance has to increase in tandem.

Professional systems manage authority through:

• Specific competence hierarchies
• Structured career paths
• Boundaries to the scope of practice
• Increasing ethical accountability
• Separate disciplinary processes

 

When there is inflation in authority without structural differentiation, responsibility inflation results.

This results in systemic exposure.

Professionalisation is not the same as training intensification; it requires institutional engineering.

Reframing the Reform Question

The current dominant question of the reform dialogue is:

“What amount of training is required?”

The structural question that should be posed is:

“What architecture of governance ensures that training equates to authorised, bounded, and accountable professional practice?”

Until the dialogue shifts from the former to the latter question, the effort to professionalise the profession of private security will remain incomplete.

Training is a necessity.

However, the difference between recognised authority and documented attendance is governance.

Conclusion: From Pedagogy to Architecture

For the profession of private security to mature from a marginal profession to a recognised profession, the dialogue must move from the current discussion of curriculum to the architecture of governance:

• Institutional separation of functions
• Tiered authority differentiation
• Codified knowledge control
• Independent oversight
• Structured progression

 

Professionalisation is not an education debate.

Professionalisation is a governance debate.

Governance is a design issue.

References

Abbott, A. (1988) The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Evetts, J. (2011) ‘A New Professionalism? Challenges and Opportunities.’ Current Sociology, 59(4), pp. 406–422.

Freidson, E. (2001) Professionalism: The Third Logic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gill, M. (ed.) (2014) The Handbook of Security. 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Loader, I. and Walker, N. (2007) Civilizing Security. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Noordegraaf, M. (2015) Public Management: Performance, Professionalism and Politics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.