Security Operations
This domain tests how a security team is organised, briefed, supervised and recorded across shifts, and how information moves up the chain.
Written instructions
- Post orders are site-specific: duties, patrols, prohibited acts, contacts, alarm responses.
- Standing orders are the employer's general policy.
- Where they conflict, follow the lawful and more specific instruction and record the conflict.
Handover
A handover is formal, not verbal. The oncoming guard reads the occurrence book, is briefed on open incidents, keys, equipment and special tasks, checks the post, and signs. 'Everything is fine' is not a handover.
The occurrence book
The OB is a contemporaneous legal record. Enter time, fact and signature; no blanks, no erasures, no torn pages. Correct an error with a single line, your initials and the time.
Briefing and deployment
Before deployment: threat level, VIP movements, special tasks, radio channel, weather, staffing gaps. Match people to posts, account for fatigue, and confirm every post is covered.
Escalation
Guard, then supervisor, then control room, then client manager, then police or emergency services. When life is at risk, call the police first and report afterwards.
Supervision
Unannounced checks, clocking or tour data, spot checks on uniform and equipment, and reading the OB.
Worked example
At handover the outgoing guard says all is well, but the OB shows an unresolved alarm fault in Block C. Do not sign a clean handover. Record the fault, check whether it was reported, escalate for a service call, and hand over with the fault noted so the next shift follows it up.
Traps
Signing the OB without reading it; unrecorded verbal arrangements; overwriting instead of a single-line correction; leaving post without informing control; assuming supervision only happens at shift start.