Trusts that grew through conversion and merger inherit a different security system, installer and contract at every school. We audit the whole estate, agree one specification with you, and bring every site up to it in phases your capital budget can carry.
£495 plus VAT per school, with trust-wide pricing. About the audit
| School | CCTV | Access | Intruder |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hub secondary1,100 on roll | |||
| Converter primary420 on roll | |||
| Village primary190 on roll | |||
| Sponsored academy780 on roll | |||
| Special school140 on roll |
In short: a trust standardises security by auditing every school against one specification, fixing the highest-risk sites first, and moving each school onto one maintenance contract as its current agreement ends. Fyrfly runs that programme for CCTV, access control, intruder alarms and fire, with a board-ready estate report at the start and one service report format after every visit. It starts with an audit of each site.
Every school that joins a trust brings its security with it: cameras from one installer, a door system from another, an alarm contract that renews on a date nobody has written down. The trust pays for the same thing several times and still cannot answer a simple question from its board: are all our schools protected to the same standard?
The gaps are not only financial. KCSiE applies equally to every school in the trust. A visitor system at the secondary and a paper sign-in book at the primary is a safeguarding inconsistency the trust owns. When an incident needs footage from two sites on incompatible systems, retrieving it takes hours rather than minutes.
None of this means ripping everything out. It means knowing what is there, agreeing what good looks like, and closing the distance school by school.
Four stages, each useful on its own. The trust can stop after any of them and still have something the board can act on.
A DBS Enhanced assessor visits each site and assesses every discipline, whoever installed it.
One written specification of what every school should have, set by phase and site size rather than by catalogue.
Highest-risk schools first, works timed for holidays and INSET days, and each phase costed for capital bids.
Schools move onto a single maintenance contract as their current agreements end, with one report format the board can compare.
The audit records every maintenance and monitoring agreement in the trust, with its notice period and renewal date. Each school then moves onto the trust contract as its existing agreement ends, so nobody pays to leave early and there is no gap in cover.
Within a cycle or two the trust has one supplier, one renewal date, one price review and one report format. Systems from any make or age are covered, including those another company installed.
Every deliverable is written to a standard rather than to a product, so the trust can take it to any installer, including the ones it already uses.
Every school rated against the trust standard on one page, discipline by discipline, with the reasons behind each rating.
A written minimum standard for each type of school, the platforms approved for new work, and the documents every handover must include.
Where a Security Estate Audit is included: every camera, recorder, controller and panel logged with make, model, firmware and condition, as a spreadsheet the trust keeps.
Each school's procedures checked against what its building can actually do, including lettings and events, with one template each school adapts.
Every security agreement across the trust, with notice periods and end dates, so consolidation happens without exit costs.
Indicative costs by school and by year, ordered by risk, in a form the finance team can use for capital planning and bids.
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 lets one organisation be the responsible person for many premises, so a trust can hold the duty for all its schools. That is simpler to govern, but it means the trust has to know that every school's procedures will work in its own building.
The duties cannot start before April 2027 and no date has been set. Trusts that baseline now can spread the work across a budget year instead of rushing it.
Early years, primary, secondary and further education settings are always in the standard tier once 200 or more people may be on site, whatever their size.
The duties are to notify the SIA and have evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication procedures staff can carry out. No cameras or door systems are required by law.
A trust-wide procedure each school tailors to its layout, tested against what its doors, alarms and communications can really do. The free lockdown procedure generator is a good starting point.
Two ways to start, depending on whether the trust needs a compliance view, a device-level view, or both. Trust-wide pricing is available on request for either.
A half-day site visit and board-ready report across all six disciplines, with a Martyn's Law tier review and DfE, KCSiE and UK GDPR gap analysis. Independent and portable. Credited in full against works commissioned within 90 days.
For schools with inherited systems nobody can explain. Every device found, tested and logged, admin access recovered, exposures flagged, and a signed baseline with a costed fix list. Credited in full against the first year of maintenance.
Better you hear it here than at tender stage.
A few details are enough for a first conversation and a fixed quote for the audit across your schools.
Prefer to talk? Call 01227 202122
or email hello@fyrflysystems.com
We will be in touch personally within one working day to arrange a short call. If it is urgent, call us on 01227 202122.
No. Standardising means agreeing one specification and working every school towards it. Equipment that meets the standard stays. Equipment that does not is replaced when it fails, when its contract ends, or when the risk justifies it, in a phased programme the board can fund over several years.
The Annual Security Audit is £495 plus VAT per site, so a six-school trust starts at £2,970 plus VAT before trust-wide pricing, which we quote on request. Where the trust has inherited systems nobody can explain, the Security Estate Audit is priced per site from the number and type of devices and credited against the first year of maintenance.
The Act lets one organisation be the responsible person for many premises, so a trust can hold the duty for all its schools. Schools are always in the standard tier, whatever their size, and the duties are procedural: notifying the SIA and having evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication procedures staff can carry out. The duties cannot start before April 2027 and no date has been set.
Usually yes. We map every contract's renewal date and notice period during the audit, then move each school across as its current agreement ends. The trust ends up with one contract, one renewal date and one report format, without early termination fees.
No. Fyrfly is not currently on a Crown Commercial Service or other public sector framework. Trusts can appoint us through their own procurement policy, by quotation below their thresholds or by responding to a tender above them, and we provide the documentation a trust's finance process needs.
Police response needs an alarm installed and maintained by an NSI or SSAIB certified company, which Fyrfly does not currently hold. We audit those alarms and report their condition, but we do not take them over in a way that puts police response at risk. We set out for each school how its response will be kept.
More tools, guides and checklists for trust teams in the Fyrfly Resource Hub →
One audit programme, one estate view for the board, and a phased plan to bring every school to the same standard. You keep the reports whatever you decide next.