Security Industry Authority Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS)
The Security Industry Authority manages the Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS), a voluntary quality assurance scheme that measures private security suppliers against independently assessed operational and performance standards. Organizations that meet these standards are awarded ‘Approved Contractor’ status. Corps Security has been a participant since the schemes inception and has increased its ACS ‘score’ year on year and is currently placed within the top 5% of scheme member companies.
Companies wishing to be members of the scheme are assessed against 89 individual indicators of achievement and to maintain approval, an approved contractor must re-register every year and renew approval every three years. This process means that approved contractors are independently assessed on an annual basis.
The ACS is based upon widely recognized business improvement models: ISO9001 and the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model. The Scheme also references the British Standard codes of practice applicable to the private security industry and conformance to the relevant codes is built into the ACS requirements.
British Safety Council
The British Safety Council is a Registered Charity founded by James Tye in 1957. It is one of the world’s leading Health and Safety organizations alongside the likes of IOSH & IIRSM. Unlike these, the BSC’s members are mostly companies. Safety Practitioners the world over use the services and training they provide. Corps Security, as a member of the British Safety Council, is committed to keeping people safe and healthy at work.
The British Safety Council as an awarding body
The British Safety Council is a government-regulated awarding body and, as such, must comply with a wide range of conditions set by the regulator so that rigor and consistency in the awarding of qualifications is maintained. Corps Security regularly makes use of the BSC qualifications in health and safety across all levels of the organization.
Management Systems
The International Organization for Standardization, known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations.
Third party certification provides reassurance to our existing and potential customers that Corps Security are a reputable and trusted contractor that has been independently verified as meeting industry standards.
Corps Security is certificated to three of the most widely recognized and implemented ISO Standards – ISO9001, ISO14001 and OHSAS18001 for our Quality, Environmental and Health & Safety Management Systems. Corps Security was certificated to ISO9001 in September 1993 and was one of the first Security Companies in the UK to gain certification to this Standard.
Integrated Management System
Implementing an Integrated Management System (IMS) motivates our colleagues by defining their key roles and responsibilities and ISO certification by an accredited certification body such as ISOQAR shows commitment to quality, the environment and health and safety and shows our customers a willingness to work towards improving standards of service and produce delivery across our entire business.
National Security Inspectorate
The National Security Inspectorate (NSI) has provided certification services for over 40 years and is widely recognized by consumers, buyers, police and insurers. NSI approval is only given to those companies that are able to consistently meet their exacting standards.
Corps Monitoring Ltd.’s Alarm Receiving Centre
Corps Monitoring Ltd.’s Alarm Receiving Centre has been accredited to the NSI Gold standard since May 2008. Gold builds on product certification to incorporate Quality Management System Certification. The combination of the Quality Management Systems and the relevant sector specific product or service represents the Gold standard of certification. This level holds the greatest perceived value across industry and by the police, fire and rescue services and insurers.
Pre-qualification Assessment Schemes
Buyers have become increasingly aware of the bureaucracy faced in assessing competence of their suppliers in relation to health and safety and a number have turned to 3rd party pre-qualification schemes to manage this process for them. Corps Security has been assessed by a number of the leading schemes including Safecontractor and CHAS who are founder members of the Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSiP) Forum.
The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) actively supports the work of Safety Schemes in Procurement Forum (SSIP Forum), and the arrangements put in place by the member schemes of the Forum to achieve mutual recognition in relation to stage 1 of the Core Criteria established in the Approved Code of Practice (ACoP) for the Construction (Design and Management) (CDM) Regulations 2007.
Accreditation assessment
The HSE recognises that an accreditation assessment carried out by any of the member schemes satisfies the requirements of the Core Criteria. Any buyer wishing to procure the services of a business which has achieved accreditation can be confident that a reasonable and robust judgement has been made that the standard for competency in CDM 2007 have been met, for the first stage of procurement.
Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) Pacesetters
The Approved Contract Scheme Pacesetters is a membership scheme made up of Contract Security Guarding Companies who are in the top 15% benchmarking and achievement levels set by the Security Industry Authority Approved Contractor Scheme.
All members of ACS Pacesetters have gained a minimum score of +108 during their annual inspection by one of the appointed UKAS inspection bodies.
It can be very difficult for the buyers of security services to differentiate between security suppliers who have achieved SIA ACS approval, and the ACS Pacesetters scheme places emphasis on the importance of the annual score, making the tender process for end-users very much simpler with membership of the ACS Pacesetters restricted to the top 15% of SIA ACS companies.
