The Security Benchmark is giving all security services companies the opportunity to take advantage of a comprehensive benchmarking exercise. Businesses will answer pertinent questions relating to their; Policies, Processes, Statistical Information and General Performance.

Once a business has completed the Benchmark Report process and received their report, they will have the opportunity to be placed on a publicly available register listed on the Security Benchmark website. Once registered, Companies will be issued a membership status of; Benchmark Gold, Benchmark Silver, Benchmark Bronze or Benchmark Member based on set criteria and performance levels. Buyers of security will have the choice of either; requesting the names of potential service partners from the Security Benchmark, or by approaching Security providers directly to tender for their contracts.

Each year every approved contractor assesses its performance against 78 individual indicators of achievement within 7 criteria. At ACS assessment these scores are verified by an independent assessor representing the SIA. Performance above the required level per indicator results in a +1, +2 or higher score. The minimum overall score that a company can achieve and still be approved is zero. Zero is a satisfactory score, as it demonstrates that the company is meeting the ACS standard and following recognised industry effective practice. The maximum overall score that can be achieved is currently 145.

The ACS scoring system was not designed by the SIA to be a differentiation tool and this has frustrated ACS companies since inception over ten years ago. The scheme can assist when gauging overall quality, provided that its limitations are understood. An overall high score may not mean that an approved contractor performs well in all areas; equally, some approved contractors may achieve a lower overall score but may perform exceptionally well in a particular aspect of the standard. The Security Benchmark ACS report now gives ACS approved Companies the opportunity to benchmark their awarded scores against other ACS Companies by; overall score, each of the 7 criteria and all of the 78 indicators.