Security tenders: SIA licensing, ACS approval and what evaluators score

Security buyers are not only buying officers on posts. They are buying proof that every officer is licensed and vetted, that the business behind them is well run, and that someone will turn up when an alarm goes off at 3am. This guide covers the rules and how to evidence them.

Licensing: know which licence each role needs

The Security Industry Authority (SIA) licenses individuals under the Private Security Industry Act 2001. It is an offence to provide security services through someone doing licensable work without the right licence. The statutory defences are that you did not know and had no reasonable grounds to suspect, or that you took all reasonable steps to prevent it. Licence checking is a legal control for you as the contractor, not just a quality point.

Licence	What it covers
Security guarding	Guarding premises or property against damage, theft, unauthorised access or disorderly behaviour. It includes using CCTV (closed circuit television) to guard against unauthorised access or protect property from damage or theft. It does not cover CCTV used to guard premises against disorder or damage, or to protect people from injury or assault.
Public space surveillance (CCTV)	CCTV monitoring for those wider purposes. It also allows CCTV use for security guarding.
Door supervision	Guarding licensed premises. It also allows security guarding.
Key holding	Keeping, or controlling access to, keys or devices for operating locks. It is a front line licence in its own right.
Non-front line	For managers, supervisors, directors and partners whose staff do licensable work, if they do not do front line work themselves. It also allows key holding.

Close protection and cash and valuables in transit have their own licences. Licences last three years.

In your bid, explain three things. How you check licences at recruitment. How you re-check them during the contract. And what happens when a licence expires or is suspended while an officer is on the rota: who spots it, and how the post is covered that shift.

The Approved Contractor Scheme

The Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) is the SIA's voluntary quality scheme for security businesses. To stay approved, a business is assessed every year by one of the SIA's approved assessing bodies, re-registers every year and renews its approval every three years. The standard covers strategy, service delivery, commercial relationships, financial management, resources, people and leadership.

Why buyers care:

Approved contractors appear on the SIA's register of approved contractors.
The SIA can give approved contractors permission to deploy staff while their licence applications are still being processed.
Some buyers require it. The SIA states that any contractor or sub-contractor providing security services under a Scottish Government contract must be ACS approved.

Two conditions matter at bid stage. Approved contractors should only sub-contract to other approved contractors unless the SIA has agreed otherwise. And the SIA's 2026 update to the ACS self-assessment workbook, published in July 2026, bars the use of operatives working through their own personal service companies. If your delivery model relies on either, fix it before you bid.

If the buyer asks, give your latest assessment date and be ready to share the assessor's report.

Screening staff to the British Standard

The British Standard (BS) code of practice for screening people who work in a secure environment is BS 7858:2019. The ACS expects screening in line with it. The main features:

a screening period of at least five years immediately before employment
identity and right to work checks
employment history verified, with gaps accounted for
a financial check for county court judgments and bankruptcy
a criminal record check, which an SIA licence can satisfy

Staff can start on conditional employment while screening finishes, but a five-year screen should normally be completed within 12 weeks. Evaluators want to know your screening file would survive a client audit. Say who signs off each file, how conditional starters are tracked, and what happens if a file cannot be completed.

Other British Standards buyers name

Standard	Subject
BS 7499	Static guarding
BS 7984-1	Keyholding and response services
BS 7984-3	Mobile security services, including mobile patrols
BS 7958	CCTV management and operation
BS 10800	The overarching code of practice for security services

Check the edition before you quote it. The British Standards Institution lists the 2020 editions of BS 7499 and BS 10800 as withdrawn from 24 August 2026, and BS 7958 is under revision. Use the edition the buyer names, and do not claim to follow a standard you do not hold a copy of.

How to evidence response times

Mobile patrol, alarm response and keyholding contracts usually set attendance targets. A target on its own scores little. Show how you will hit it.

Weak: "We guarantee a 30-minute response to all alarm activations."

Stronger: "Response units are based at two locations, each within a 20-minute night-time drive of every site on the schedule. The control room logs time of call, dispatch, arrival and all-clear, and the client receives the log monthly. If a second alarm comes in while both units are committed, the duty supervisor attends and the client is told the revised arrival time."

The figures in that example are illustrative. Use your own, and make sure they:

come from time-stamped records, not estimates
account for night-time and peak travel, not an empty road
include the months you missed target, with what you changed
explain what happens when two calls arrive at once

Assignment instructions

Assignment instructions are the site-specific rules each officer works to: duties at each post, patrol routes and times, access control, emergency procedures, reporting and who to call. Evaluators are not scoring whether you have them. They are scoring how you keep them useful. Cover:

who drafts them during mobilisation, and when the client signs them off
how officers are briefed, and how you record that they have read them
when they are reviewed: after incidents, after site changes and at set intervals
how supervisors check that officers actually follow them

Staff transfer in security contracts

When a guarding contract changes hands, the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) will often move the officers to the new contractor on their existing terms. Security adds its own checks to the usual TUPE work:

each officer's licence type and expiry date, checked against the role they will do
whether each screening file meets BS 7858, or needs completing
fresh right to work checks, which you have 60 days from the transfer to complete
shift patterns and night and weekend pay rates, priced into your model
rotas that comply with the Working Time Regulations 1998, including weekly hours and any opt-outs

Before you submit

Read each answer as an evaluator would. Every claim about licensing, vetting or response should point to a record the buyer could ask to see.

If you want help with a security tender, from checking your ACS and screening evidence to writing the response-time answers, get in touch. You can also read how we approach security services bids.

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