Thames Water has gone out to tender with a major AMP8 contract for dedicated security patrol and response service worth up to an estimated £72 million.

Photo: Aerial view of Coppermills Water Treatment Works

The water company is looking to improve its protective security, particularly for its critical assets, and ensure compliance with associated industry regulations such as SEMD (Security & Emergency Measures Direction) and PSG (Protective Security Guidance).

To ensure compliance, Thame Water is required to patrol its critical assets and have sufficient planned response for incidents, and resource must be trained to respond to worst case scenarios.

The scope will include a dedicated 24/7 service to provide:

• Proactive patrols and inspections of sites to provide security presence and check for perimeter vulnerabilities;and
• Reactive rapid response to alarms and incidents, and providing security support for police and frontline staff where needed.

The successful supplier will need to provide appropriate vehicles, communications and response equipment, and officers that are adequately trained in incident response, enhanced physical intervention, conflict management, etc.

The supplier will also need to coordinate their staff/vehicles across the company's region (London & Thames Valley) with appropriate route planning to ensure Thames Water’s needs and SLAs are met. Reactive response requirements will be communicated to the supplier by the water company’s Alarm Monitoring Centre (AMC).

Key priorities and expectations for this agreement include:

• Security Resilience & Assurance to improve protection of our sites and more capable response to alarms/incidents;
• Compliance with SEMD & PSG regs;
• Health, Safety & Wellbeing focus with increased protection for staff against public threats/abuse;
• Value for Money to demonstrate to OFWAT in line with PR24 submission, and reducing the cost of damage/loss from security breaches.

Thames Water intends to award a Framework Agreement to a single supplier – initial estimated contract dates are 1 July 2025 to 1 July 2028, with a possible further extension option to 1 July 2033.

Deadline for requests to participate is 14 April 2025, 10:00am – click here to access the tender documentation.