The BSIA's wholly owned subsidiary, Skills for Security, has  sold part of its share equity to The Banks Foundation (TBF). With a 49.9% share in Skills for Security, TBF will allocate its generated income to activities centred around young entrepreneurs that encourage and advance their careers, training, salaries and seed-fund start-ups.

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TBF was set up by entrepreneur and founder of CSL Group, Simon Banks, a long-standing advocate of supporting and mentoring young people into the IoT, Security and electrotechnical sectors.  TBF is not-for-profit and is a family foundation, designed to give something back after a lifetime career in the security industry.

Under the new ownership, employees of the training body will also become shareholders of Skills for Security.

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Simon Banks, founder of The Banks Foundation, said: "I'm passionate about helping young people realise their potential, whether through apprenticeships or entrepreneurship or both. TBF provides an important boost for young enterprise - these are people that have something that you can’t teach and may ordinarily miss the opportunity to demonstrate their extra-curriculum abilities. By creating wealth in our sector, we will ensure we attract the very best talent and move the Security sector forward, benefiting the entire value chain.

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“We are about to kick off an initiative with 13 schools and colleges, where 700 students aged from 14-18 are encouraged to turn £1 into £10, that into £100 through audited trading and so on. This initiative seeks-out resourceful people that may think differently about business and opportunities and is being supported by Young Enterprise, local Councils and Colleges.”  

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David Scott, Managing Director, Skills for Security, said: “This is such a positive step that will allow us to scale-up our training operations nationally.  We are well used to Simon’s involvement as he’s been Chairman for some time.

“Critical to the investment was to ensure our employees are all shareholders, something that Simon introduced into CSL some twenty years ago; this is massively important for morale as we grow and means that the team will be focused on the same goals whilst sharing in the financial rewards.”