7 questions to ask before hiring a security company

Choosing a security provider is a decision about trust: you are giving a company access to your people, your premises and your reputation. The right questions, asked up front, tell you almost everything you need to know. Here are seven that a good provider will answer without hesitation.

1. Are your officers SIA-licensed?

Every officer in a licensable role must hold a valid Security Industry Authority licence, by law. Ask to see it, and understand what SIA-licensed actually means for your liability.

2. Are your officers employed on PAYE?

This one question filters out a great deal. Providers who pay cash-in-hand or route staff through informal arrangements expose you to supply-chain and reputational risk. A confident "yes, all of them" is what you want to hear.

3. How do you vet your staff?

Proper providers screen every officer to BS 7858 before they set foot on site, covering identity, right to work, and a full five-year history. If vetting is vague or optional, walk away.

4. Do your monitoring and escalation run 24/7?

Incidents do not keep office hours. Ask whether monitoring and escalation genuinely run around the clock, whether alarm and CCTV monitoring is carried out through an NSI Gold accredited monitoring centre, and how quickly an officer is dispatched when something happens.

5. Can you evidence your compliance?

Pay, hours, licences and right-to-work checks should be documented and auditable. A provider who can produce records on request is a provider with nothing to hide.

You are not just buying hours on a rota. You are buying accountability. Make the provider prove they have it.

6. Who actually turns up on site?

Ask whether the officers are the company's own employees or brought in from elsewhere. If labour is sub-contracted, the same standards, vetting and PAYE must apply all the way down the chain (the principle behind BS 10119).

7. What happens when something goes wrong?

Reporting, incident management, cover for absence and a named point of contact all matter. A professional provider has clear answers; a cheap one improvises.