Public Sector Security Systems in Northern Ireland
Schools, councils, healthcare sites, social housing and critical infrastructure buy security under conditions a private business never faces. Here is how we handle the procurement paperwork, the vetting, the work in occupied buildings and the data protection duty.
Buying security systems when you answer to the public
A public body buys security differently from a private business. The specification has to survive scrutiny, the spend has to be defensible months later, and most of the people a camera records never chose to walk through your door. That changes the paperwork and the governance more than it changes the equipment.
Advanced Overwatch is a Coleraine based installer covering all of Northern Ireland. Advanced Overwatch is SSAIB certificated (NIRE127) specifically for Intruder Alarm Systems, Visual Surveillance Systems (VSS) and Access Control Systems. Advanced Overwatch is certified to ISO 9001, 14001, 27001 and 45001. This hub sits under Sectors, beside our commercial security page.
Tenders, frameworks and the documents you need
Public sector enquiries reach us in three shapes: a quotation against a written specification, a full tender with a scoring matrix, or a call off against a framework you already hold. We answer all three, and would rather see the specification early than price a guess.
Documents for your enquiry
Ask, and we supply as standard: the SSAIB certificate with its scope printed on it, the four ISO certificates, insurance schedules, a capability statement, site specific risk assessments and method statements, engineer qualification records, a draft maintenance schedule, and our data protection and information security policies. Where we cannot honestly evidence something, we say so rather than dress it up.
People, safeguarding
and the working day.
Agree the working arrangements before installation begins.
Who actually walks on to your site
Public sites care as much about who arrives as about what gets fitted. Our engineers carry photographic ID, sign in through your own system, and work to whatever escort rule you set. Where a setting requires AccessNI disclosure we arrange it before work starts, not on the morning of the install.
Working to your safeguarding policy
In a school, a ward or supported housing the questions are about proximity: which corridors are in use, when pupils move between classes, which rooms need a member of staff present. We work to your safeguarding policy and expect to know who the safeguarding lead is.
Working around term time, opening hours and wards
Very little public sector work happens in an empty building. A school is quiet a few weeks a year and full for the rest, council offices have opening hours the public plans around, and a healthcare site never closes.
So the programme is built backwards from your calendar. Cabling at half term or out of hours, cutovers staged so no entrance loses working access control overnight, and temporary cover agreed in writing wherever a system comes down before its replacement is live. Any isolation of a detection or intruder system is booked and lifted the same day.
Phased delivery across two or three budget years is normal. Size the head end, cabling and network for the finished scheme in phase one and you avoid tearing phase one out.
Surveillance in a public setting
A public authority installing surveillance carries duties a shop does not. In most cases a data protection impact assessment must be completed before the first camera goes up, not after.
The practical work is signage, a written retention schedule you can hold to, controlled access to footage, and a route for answering subject access and freedom of information requests. Public bodies get both, and footage of one person almost always contains several, so redaction is not optional. Our free ICO compliance checker is a fair first pass, and we can write the CCTV policy it refers to. More on CCTV compliance.
Audio is the question we are asked most, and usually by staff. Recording conversation is far more intrusive than recording an image and is hard to justify in a workplace. Our default is microphones disabled.
Section 75 and an entrance everyone can use
Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 requires public authorities to have due regard to promoting equality of opportunity, and a new surveillance or access control scheme is the kind of change that gets screened against it. Disability rights here run through the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, not the Equality Act 2010 that applies in Great Britain.
In design terms: readers and intercoms where a wheelchair user can reach them, closing forces that do not defeat someone with limited strength, visual confirmation as well as audible, and no camera recording an accessible facility.
Certification scope, stated plainly
Advanced Overwatch is SSAIB certificated (NIRE127) specifically for Intruder Alarm Systems, Visual Surveillance Systems (VSS) and Access Control Systems. It does not cover fire detection or emergency lighting. We install and maintain fire detection to BS 5839 and emergency lighting to BS 5266, and we say so in those words. Where a specification demands third party fire certification, we do not claim it.
Public sector work routes to these services
Town and City Centre CCTV
Public realm schemes for councils, BIDs and safety partnerships.
Schools and Campus
A worked example, not a named customer: an ageing school system replaced.
Public sector questions
Do you need council permission to put up CCTV?
For most cameras on your own building, no. It becomes a real question where a camera is on a listed building, sits in a conservation area, or needs a new column or mast in the public realm. Public realm schemes also need wayleaves and landowner consent, and those set the programme.
Can an employer listen to conversations on CCTV?
Audio is treated as far more intrusive than video and is hard to justify in a workplace. It needs a specific documented purpose, an impact assessment addressing it directly, and staff who have been told. Our default is microphones disabled.
How do you handle a freedom of information or subject access request for footage?
Design for it in advance: retention set to a period you can defend, a named person who can retrieve footage, an export format that will open, and redaction for the other people in frame. We provide video redaction, so a request can be answered inside the statutory deadline.
Accredited, audited & independent
Independently certified and answerable only to our customers, no franchise, no head-office script, one local Coleraine team.
- Est. 2017
- SSAIB Certified
- ISO 9001
- ISO 14001
- ISO 27001
- ISO 45001
Talk to us about a public sector project.
Send us the specification, the tender pack or just the problem. We will survey the site, tell you plainly what we can and cannot certify, and give you an itemised proposal you can put in front of a committee.
Security for businesses and homes across N.I.