Assignments & duties
What is assignment instructions?
Assignment instructions are the site-specific document telling officers what they are required to do on a particular assignment — the duties, the patrol requirements, the escalation routes and the site's own rules.
Use this diagram+
Free to use on your own site, in training material or in a handout, as long as the credit link stays on it. Paste this where you want the diagram to appear.
<figure>
<img src="https://secureoptix.co.uk/glossary/assignment-instructions/diagram.svg" alt="assignment instructions — diagram from SecureOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
<figcaption>
<a href="https://secureoptix.co.uk/glossary/assignment-instructions">What is assignment instructions?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://secureoptix.co.uk">SecureOptix</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>They are the operational contract. What a client believes they are buying and what an officer believes they are doing meet in this document, and where it is vague the two diverge quietly over months.
They have to be current and available on site. Instructions held at head office, or a version superseded a year ago still in the gatehouse folder, describe an assignment that no longer exists.
Emergency and escalation content is the part that is read under pressure and therefore the part that needs to be written for someone who is not calm. Who to call, in what order, and what to do while waiting.
What goes wrong in practice
- Written at mobilisation and never revised as the site, the risks or the contacts changed.
- Officers deployed without having read them, with nothing recording that they were briefed.
- Held only in a folder on site, so a relief officer arriving to a locked office has none.
- Escalation contacts out of date, which is discovered during the incident rather than before it.