Client terms of business

These terms apply to every business that uses GuardGo to find security guards. Please read them carefully: you must accept them before we introduce any guard to you. Text in square brackets, such as [company number], will be completed before these terms come into force.

1. About GuardGo

1.1 GuardGo is operated by [GuardGo legal entity name], a company registered in England and Wales under number [company number], whose registered office is at [registered office address] (“GuardGo”, “we”, “us”).

1.2 We act as an employment agency within the meaning of the Employment Agencies Act 1973 and the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 (the “Conduct Regulations”). We introduce guards to you so that you can engage them directly. We are not an employment business: we do not employ guards, supply them to you, pay them or control how they work.

1.3 You can contact us at [contact email].

2. Definitions

• Account: your client account on the GuardGo website or app (the “Platform”).
• Booking: your confirmed selection of a Guard for a Vacancy.
• Fee: the booking fee in section 9.
• Guard: an individual registered on the Platform who holds a licence from the Security Industry Authority (“SIA”) and has been approved by us.
• Introduction: our passing a Guard’s details to you, including showing you a Guard who has expressed interest in your Vacancy.
• Session: a dated period of work within a Vacancy.
• Vacancy: a temporary role you post on the Platform, made up of one or more Sessions.
• You: the business that holds the Account, including its staff who use the Account.

3. Accepting these terms

3.1 You accept these terms by ticking the box when you register or when we ask you to accept a new version. We record the version you accepted and when.

3.2 You confirm that you are acting for a business, that the person accepting has authority to bind it, and that the information you give us is accurate and kept up to date.

4. Your Account and our checks

4.1 We review every new client before your Vacancies can be published. We may check your company on the Companies House register, ask for evidence of your insurance, and check your SIA Approved Contractor Scheme status if you say you hold it. We may decline or suspend an Account at our discretion.

4.2 You must keep your login details secure and tell us at once if you think someone else has used your Account.

5. Posting Vacancies

5.1 For each Vacancy you must give us accurate information, including:

• your identity and the nature of your business;
• the dates, start and finish times of each Session, and where the work takes place;
• the type of work, the SIA licence and any other qualifications required;
• any risks to health and safety you know of and the steps you have taken to control them;
• the hourly rate you will pay, when and how you will pay it, and any expenses you will cover.

We need this information to comply with the Conduct Regulations and to match suitable Guards.

5.2 Vacancies must be genuine, lawful and for licensable security work or closely related work. They must not discriminate unlawfully, for example on grounds of sex, race, disability, religion or age, except where the Equality Act 2010 allows a genuine occupational requirement.

5.3 Once a Guard has expressed interest in a Vacancy, you cannot change its Sessions, venue, rate or licence type. Cancel it and post a new one instead.

6. Introductions and Bookings

6.1 Guards who meet the requirements of your Vacancy can express interest. Expressing interest means the Guard has accepted the Vacancy’s terms and is available for all of its Sessions.

6.2 When you choose a Guard, the Booking is confirmed (subject to payment of the Fee, if payment is taken at the time of booking). We then share the Guard’s full name, contact number and SIA licence number with you, and your venue address and contact details with the Guard.

6.3 Before we approve a Guard we take reasonable steps to confirm their identity, that they hold a valid SIA licence of the type they claim (by checking the SIA’s public register), their right to work in the UK and any qualifications they list. We repeat licence checks from time to time. These checks help you choose, but they do not replace your own legal duties, including those in sections 7 and 8.

6.4 On request, we will give you copies of the evidence we hold of a Guard’s licence and qualifications, as the Conduct Regulations require, subject to data protection law.

7. Your relationship with the Guard

7.1 You engage each Guard directly. You are responsible for deciding the Guard’s employment status (employee, worker or self-employed) and for every legal obligation that follows from it, including PAYE, National Insurance, the National Minimum Wage, holiday pay, working time and pension auto-enrolment where they apply.

7.2 You must pay each Guard what you agreed, when you agreed. We do not handle Guards’ pay.

7.3 You are responsible for supervising the work, giving the Guard a safe place of work and a site induction, and complying with health and safety law.

7.4 You must hold any insurance the law requires, including employers’ liability insurance where you employ the Guard, and appropriate public liability insurance.

7.5 It is a criminal offence under the Private Security Industry Act 2001 to engage in, or supply others to carry out, licensable security activity without the right SIA licence. At the start of every Session you must check that the Guard is the person named in the Booking and is wearing a valid SIA licence of the right type, and confirm this in the Platform (see section 8.6).

8. Right to work (Home Office requirements)

This section is the written statement that the Home Office requires an online matching service such as GuardGo to have in place before any work starts.

8.1 Checks. Before any Guard starts work for you, you must carry out a prescribed right to work check on them in the way set out in the Home Office code of practice on preventing illegal working (an online check using the Guard’s share code, a manual check of original documents, or a check through a registered right to work digital verification service provider). You must carry out any follow-up checks before a time-limited permission runs out, and keep the evidence for the length of the engagement plus two years. GuardGo’s own checks do not give you a statutory excuse.

8.2 No subcontracting or substitution. You must not subcontract a Booking, or allow anyone other than the booked Guard to do the work, without our prior written consent. If we consent, your arrangement must contain right to work obligations equivalent to this section.

8.3 Audits. We may audit your compliance with this section. You must give us evidence of your right to work checks within five working days of our request.

8.4 Enforcement. If illegal working is identified and you have not established a statutory excuse, we may suspend or close your Account and cancel your Bookings at once. Your own contract with the Guard must let you take equivalent action.

8.5 Home Office co-operation. You must co-operate with any Home Office investigation into illegal working connected with a Booking. This includes providing information about the purpose and make-up of any chain of contracts and the details of each business involved (official name, company type, registered address or main place of business, and company number where applicable).

8.6 Records in the Platform. For each Booking you must record in the Platform the date and method of your right to work check before the first Session, and confirm the Guard’s identity at the start of every Session. A Guard should not start a Session until both have been done.

9. Fees

9.1 Booking fee. You pay us £20 [plus VAT] for each Guard you book for a Vacancy, however many Sessions the Vacancy has. The Fee is earned when the Booking is confirmed. We may change the Fee for future Bookings on 30 days’ notice. The Fee for a Booking is fixed when it is confirmed.

9.2 Payment. Where card payment is available, you pay the Fee by card when you confirm the Booking. Otherwise we invoice you and you must pay within seven days of the invoice date. We may stop you making new Bookings while any Fee is overdue.

9.3 No fees to Guards. We never charge Guards for finding them work.

9.4 Introductions outside the Platform. If, within 12 months after we introduce a Guard to you, you engage that Guard for security work other than through the Platform, you must pay us an introduction fee of [amount] for each such Guard. This reflects the value of the Introduction. [Wording and amount to be confirmed with a solicitor.]

10. Cancellations, no-shows and credits

10.1 If you cancel a confirmed Booking, the Fee is not refunded unless we agree otherwise.

10.2 If the Guard cancels a confirmed Booking, the Booking ends. The Fee becomes a credit for that Vacancy and covers a replacement Guard you book for it. If you do not book a replacement before the Vacancy closes, we refund or cancel the Fee.

10.3 If a Guard does not attend, report it in the Platform within 48 hours of the Session’s scheduled end. After reviewing it we may refund the Fee.

10.4 You must give Guards reasonable notice of any cancellation and honour any cancellation terms you agreed with them.

11. Conduct

You must treat Guards with respect and must not harass them or ask them to do anything unlawful or unsafe. You must not use the Platform to contact Guards for purposes other than the Booking, or to collect Guards’ details for use outside the Platform.

12. Data protection

12.1 You and GuardGo are each independent controllers of the personal data you receive about each other’s people. You must use Guards’ personal data only to manage the Booking and meet your legal obligations, keep it secure, and delete it when you no longer need it.

12.2 Our privacy policy explains how we use personal data.

13. Liability

13.1 We take reasonable care in running the Platform and making the checks in section 6.3, but we do not guarantee any Guard’s performance, conduct or availability, or that the Platform will always be available.

13.2 Except as set out in section 13.3, our total liability to you under or in connection with these terms in any 12-month period is limited to the Fees you paid us in that period. We are not liable for loss of profit, business or goodwill, or any indirect or consequential loss.

13.3 Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law.

14. Suspension and ending these terms

14.1 You can close your Account at any time. Sections 7 to 10, 12 and 13 continue to apply to Bookings already made.

14.2 We may suspend or close your Account at once if you breach these terms, if we reasonably suspect illegal working or fraud, or if continuing would put Guards or GuardGo at risk.

15. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. We will give you at least 30 days’ notice of changes that affect you, and you will be asked to accept the new version before making new Bookings.

16. Complaints

If you are unhappy with our service, contact [contact email]. We aim to respond within 10 working days.

17. Law and courts

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, unless your registered office is in Scotland or Northern Ireland, in which case you may also bring proceedings there.