Selecting a provider
Eight questions worth asking any close protection provider
Protective arrangements rarely fail dramatically. They fail because nobody asked, at the outset, what would happen on a difficult day. These eight questions take an hour.
1. Show me the assessment you would do before quoting.
A provider who quotes a number of officers before assessing anything is selling headcount. Ask what the assessment covers, what it produces, and whether you get it in writing. If the answer is a conversation rather than a document, you have nothing to review, compare or hand to an insurer.
2. Who exactly will be deployed, and what are their registrations?
In South Africa, security service providers and their officers must be registered with PSIRA, at a grade appropriate to the role. Ask for the names, grades and registration numbers of the people who will actually be on your detail — not the company registration. Then verify them. A provider that hesitates here has told you something important.
3. If a role is armed, show me the firearm compliance.
Armed roles bring a second regulatory framework: the Firearms Control Act, competency certification, licensing and control of the firearm itself. Ask who the responsible person is, how firearms are stored and issued, and what the record looks like. Ask what happens if an officer's competency lapses mid-contract.
4. What are the officers' conditions of service?
This sounds like an HR question. It is a risk question. Officers working excessive hours without proper rest make poor decisions, and non-compliance with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act tends to arrive at the client's door eventually. Ask about shift length, rest periods, relief arrangements and whether personnel are employed or subcontracted.
5. What happens in the first ten minutes of an incident?
Not the tactics — you should not be told those, and a provider who volunteers them is advertising to the wrong audience. Ask about the arrangement: who is notified, in what order, who has authority to make a decision, and how you and your family are informed.
6. Who is watching the movement from outside it?
A team in a vehicle cannot raise the alarm for itself if it is occupied. Ask whether movements are monitored off-site, what the check-in interval is, and what happens when a check-in is missed. If the answer is "the team will call", there is no oversight.
7. What is the medical plan?
Ask what medical training the deployed personnel hold, what equipment travels with the detail, and which facility they would take a casualty to from a given point on your routine route. On a remote site or a long journey this is the question that most often has no answer.
8. What will you not do?
Capable providers decline work. A provider who says yes to everything — every capability, every territory, every timeline — is either much larger than they appear or is planning to subcontract you to someone you have not vetted. Ask directly what falls outside their capability and who they would refer it to.
A note on discretion. Be wary of a provider whose marketing shows client vehicles, residences, routes or personnel deployments. If they publish that about a current client, they will publish it about you.
Your turn
Put these questions to us.
Everything above is what we would want a client to ask of any provider, including this one.