Investigative Services Help

The Investigative Services Directory is a comprehensive essential reference source of Investigative Services to the legal profession throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  This directory has a range of handy tools to enable you to find the service you need with the areas of expertise you need in a convenient location.

Search features

The search page brings up a number of features for you to choose from.  Don't forget that if you narrow down your search too much and make selections in every field, you will have a very small number of results to view, possibly none at all. You should also check the spelling of any items that are free text fields (particularly Investigative Service Name and Town) as misspellings are common causes of 0 results being returned. Once you have made your selections, click 'Search' or use the Return key on your keyboard.  If you want to clear your search and start again for any reason, click on the 'Clear' button.

• Investigative Service Name.  You can enter the name of the supplier you are looking for or even a part name so that your results return all the organisations with that name or with the part name you have selected.  For example, entering 'Al' will return 9 or so results all with the letters 'Al' in their Company Name.
• Town.  This is another free text search field and you can enter a full town name or a part town name.  For example, 'South' will return not only Southampton but all other town which include 'South' as four consecutive letters, such as Southend-on-Sea and Southsea.  The part spelling is sufficient on its own.  Although we hold over 600 towns in the database, we do not list every village.  For example, a search on Heavitree will return 0 results even though there is a company operating from this part of Exeter, but a search on Exeter would pick up the company operating from Heavitree along with others in the Exeter area.
• County/Unitary Authority.  This drop-down menu enables you to select the County Council or Unitary Authority of your choice and refine your search further after that if you wish.  For example, a search on 'Greater Manchester ' returns not just Manchester, but the other major towns such as Rochdale, Bolton and Oldham.

Unitary Authorities

Note that in the UK ,'Unitary Authorities' are English or Welsh local authorities set up by the Local Government Act 1992 which form a single tier of local government and are responsible for almost all local government functions within their areas. This is opposed to the two-tier system of local government which still exists in most of England where local government functions are divided between county councils and district councils. Until 1996 similar two-tier systems existed in Scotland and Wales but these have now been replaced by fully unitary systems.  

For further help with checking what town is in what Unitary Authority, click on this downloadable map: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/geography/downloads/uk_cty_ua.pdf

Understanding Your Search Results

Once you have made your selections and either pressed Return or clicked on 'Search' your results will be returned to you on new screen. Don't forget that if you want to conduct a new search at this point you have to select 'new search'.  Your results comprise a number of features to enable you to get the most from your research:

• Title of search.  Your results will tell you what you have just searched on.  For example 'Your search on Greater Manchester revealed 15 record(s)'.
• Number of results displayed.  Each screen can accommodate 50 results and to view the whole of your search you need to click on the 'Next' link at the foot of your search page
• Order of results.  These default to A-Z of Company Name, listing all the companies who have opted for an Enhanced Entry in the first A-Z listing.  The other companies who have the free entry providing basic contact details are listed after that. You can switch the order to location by clicking 'Location' on your screen.  This orders your results in the A-Z order of the Location of the firm.
• Colour coding and symbols.  The alternating shaded blue stripes enclose the firms who have opted for an Enhanced Entry where you can click through to their full details. You can do this by clicking on the highlighted Company Name or on any of the symbols on the right of your screen denoting Map, Email and Weblink.
• Printing your results.  Each screen of results can be printed by clicking on the Print button or using CtrlP on your keyboard.  You should not be compiling databases from these results (see our Terms & Conditions).
• Add/Edit Your entry. If you have searched for your own company or a particular service provider you know is in operation but has not appeared on this website, please click here to provide us with details so that we can include the company, subject to our usual verification process. If your company does come up on your search results but only basic information with no map is appearing in your profile page, you may wish to opt for an Enhanced Entry to add in the missing information.  Full details of options can also be viewed on our Classified Advertising pages.

Refine Your Search

You can refine your search, retaining all the search criteria you have just selected by clicking on the Refine button at the top left side of your screen.  For example, if your search results are bringing up all the Investigative Services in Greater Manchester came to 15 or so records and you wanted to refine this by finding out how many were in the Stockport area, you can add this into your search screen and search again.  You should have around 3 results now.

Contact Us

For further help with your search or search results, please contact us.