Home › Guidance
Free guidance
Protecting government information
Six short guides and a companion framework for organisations that hold OFFICIAL and OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE information for central government or the Ministry of Defence. Free to download, with nothing to fill in first.
Current at September 2026, and reviewed at least once a year.
Start here
Guide 1. The protective envelope
Physical, personnel, cyber and information security each protect government information in a different way, and the gaps tend to sit where one hands over to another. This guide explains how the four fit together and how the requirements reach a supplier, whether the customer is a central government department or the MOD.
The four areas
One guide for each area. Each can be read on its own, and each ends with the records that area should produce.
Guide 2. Physical securityStorage, access, home working and work on government sites. (PDF, opens in a new tab)
Guide 3. Personnel securityScreening, clearance, briefing, aftercare and leavers. (PDF, opens in a new tab)
Guide 4. Cyber securityCyber Essentials, the MOD Cyber Security Model and why the whole business is in scope. (PDF, opens in a new tab)
Guide 5. Information securityMarking and sending OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE information, and the devices that hold it. (PDF, opens in a new tab)
Bringing it together
How to run the four areas as one set of arrangements, and the detailed framework for the devices and services that hold government information.
Guide 6. Bringing it togetherWhere the areas meet, what joins them and how to describe your arrangements accurately. (PDF, opens in a new tab)
Secure Endpoint Framework for Government SuppliersThe detailed companion to Guide 5: a device and service baseline with the evidence each control should produce. (PDF, opens in a new tab)
Where the Defence Supplier Mark fits
The guides are general, and free for any organisation to use. The Defence Supplier Mark is the independent assessment of how an organisation handles security risk across the work it delivers, judged against a published standard.
- The standard and control set for the Mark are on the Defence Supplier Mark page, published in full
- If you would like help applying the guides to your own organisation, we can introduce you to a Licensed Partner, whose work is kept separate from any assessment
Would you like to talk?
Optional. Every download on this page works without it.