Met Police thank installers for keeping ahead of national average in false alarm fight
ACPO 2000 has already had a "significant impact" on reducing false alarms in the London area, says Inspector Kevin Mann, Secretary of the ACPO Security Systems Group.

Speaking at the third Intruder Alarm Performance Awards organised by the Metropolitan Police, Insp Mann said that changes in the ACPO Policy had not all been popular … "but there has already been a significant impact on our false alarm statistics". It will help police reduce unnecessary demands on its resources and give the industry "substantial opportunities for future development."

Inspector Mann, the Met's Intruder Alarms Office Manager, said nationally the police service saw a drop in the average number of false activations per system to 0.98. "In London we managed to reduce our average false alarm rate to 0.75".

The following companies in three categories, had the least number of false alarms in a year. The Met also recognised the part played by their Alarm Receiving Centres (given in brackets).

Small companies

  • Gold: Blitz Security Group (Custodian Monitoring Services)
  • Silver: Telecoms Security Direct (Regal Monitoring and Group 4 Monitoring Services)
  • Bronze: Security Masters (Southern Monitoring Services)
Medium companies
  • Gold: Westec Security, last year's bronze winner (Yeomann Monitoring Services)
  • Silver: London East Security Centre (Securi-Guard)
  • Bronze: British Gas Home Security, last year's silver winner (Group 4 Monitoring Services)
Large companies
  • Gold: Banham Alarms, gold winner in 1999 and 2000 (own monitoring centre)
  • Silver: Chubb Electronic Security – the silver winner in 1999 (Security Monitoring Centres)
  • Bronze: ADT Fire and Security, bronze winner in 1999 and 2000 (own monitoring)
Charles Hallatt, MD of Banham, has now won the Gold award in the large company section three years in a row. He attributed his company's success to the quality of training received by his installers and maintenance engineers (about 120). "We don't send people out until they're trained thoroughly," he said. Winning the award had been an effective marketing tool for the company, which this year celebrates its 75th anniversary. All his engineers went around with a photograph of it to show potential customers. Running their own ARC also helped Banham to keep down false alarms.

Security Masters, based in South London was only the second SSAIB company to win one of the awards since the Met introduced them. Proprietor, Martin Curry, who has been an installer since 1967, said he was proud to receive a Bronze Award in the small company category. His company's policy was "always investigate the reasons behind a false alarm … don't just go round and fix it." He also got good quality support from his ARC, Southern Monitoring Services.

Source

Security Installer