Over 150 and counting
Since W.A.P.I.'s (World Association of Professional Investigators) inauguration in August 2001, over 150 Professional Investigators from across the U.K. and indeed from around the world, have chosen to become full and active members of what is undoubtedly becoming a 'leading light' amongst our trade associations.
When I first become a P.I. over 40 years ago, there was only one P.I. Trade Association to join, that was of course, if you were acceptable. As I neither came from a Police or similar investigative background, had less than 3 years P.I. experience, I was 'persona non grata'.
About twenty years later when my company had become one of the largest P.I. organisations in the U.K., a business associate and a member of the then two P.I. Trade Associations asked me whether I would consider joining one or indeed both. Neither matched my criteria of what I would want from a Trade Association, in my opinion they were insular, biased in their membership selection criteria, in particular displaying a prohibitive disposition towards beginners, and lacked innovation and enterprise. The only way I could see myself belonging to a trade association was if the existing ones were to fundamentally change or a new one emerged, all of which embodied my beliefs, principles and aspirations of what I thought a 21st Century trade association should be.
Although frankly at that time, not being aligned to a trade association was of little importance. That was until the late nineties when the Government's proposed legislation and Private Security Industry Act loomed on the horizon. Although my company was concerned about this proposed legislation and the affects it might have on our business, it soon became evident through our communications with the Home Office, that unless we were able to collaborate and through coherent dialogue produce a consensus on how we, the P.I industry would want or not want to be regulated, there would be little, if no chance, in bringing about any changes to this proposed radical reform of our industry. It also seemed incredulous that many P.I.'s were not only oblivious to the possible affects such legislation would wreak on their business if left unchallenged, but also displayed complete apathy in what was a livelihood-threatening issue. It had now become a matter of great importance for all independent P.I.'s to organise a positive, coherent and unified voice to speak with, or face the consequences of leaving the Government calling all the shots.
It was at this time that W.A.P.I. was conceived. I believed the most practical and democratic way to achieve this 'unity of people', develop a consensus from a sufficient representation of P.I.'s that would be seriously viewed by government was to form a new and fully inclusive 21st century trade association which would attract many of the unrepresented independent P.I.'s who incidentally make up 90% of our industry, provide a forum to have a say, express views, ideas, and be heard, together making one meaningful and unified voice to speak to government.
Having asked my brother to join me in establishing such an association, choosing the name, logo and motif, we then formulated the basic objectives which included being open to all professional investigators, never unreasonably declining a person membership, being truly democratic, transparent, innovative and enterprising, together with always being fully representative of the members best interests, two well established like-minded P.I. colleagues, John Edwards and Keith Walker were then invited to join us as the founder members and on 24th August 2001, W.A.P.I. was born, as the saying goes, the rest is history!
In conclusion, I believe that W.A.P.I.'s remarkable growth rate is largely attributable to being seen as a truly democratic transparent, innovative and exciting P.I. trade association to be part of, and through its continuing involvement with the P.I. sector over new law, its membership of the Joint Security Industry Council (J.S.I.C.) and the Investigators Sector Group (I.S.G.) interfacing with Government through the Security Industry Authority (S.I.A.), truly represents and unites its members in one unified voice, as our motif says, 'united by vocation'. COME AND JOIN US!
Stuart Withers
Nationwide Investigations Group Ltd
Email: swithers@nig.co.uk
Web: www.nig.co.uk