Thompson & Clark said it will consider all aspects of the report released by the State Services Commission today into work the security industry has carried out with government departments.

“We have had the final report for less than 24 hours and will take some time to consider it in detail”, Director Gavin Clark said.

“However, we are pleased the report has confirmed our view throughout that “there was no evidence of widespread surveillance by external security consultants on behalf of government agencies”, Mr Clark said.

“The report has also confirmed that much of the work we conducted for government agencies was within their SSC code of conduct.

“We accept the findings that some processes around how and when some work was carried out could have been more stringent. An internal review of this is already underway but we maintain that there is a legitimate place for the work that we do, to help agencies keep their people safe.

“There are some findings we do not agree with, as noted in the report, as they don’t reflect the understanding that our industry and its Code operated to in years gone by. We will explain our disagreement with those findings to any future investigations that may result from this report.

Mr Clark said Thompson & Clark cooperated fully with the inquiry.

“We have worked with numerous government departments across three different Governments over 15 years. We have always strived to operate within the law and the rules and regulations of our industry, he said.

“We will be making no further comment at this point”, Mr Clark said.

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