South Yorkshire police has announced that ARCs must pass on calls via premium rate lines.
The industry’s trade association has won a 56-day legal injunction to stop West Midlands carrying out its threatened withdrawal of response to unconfirmed alarms between 6am-7pm Monday to Saturday. The High Court review was obtained following uproar across the industry and particularly from installation companies who said it was unfair and impossible to carry out within the few weeks the police gave as a deadline to fit confirmation systems. The action also flew in the face of the united ACPO Intruder Alarms Policy and recognition by ACPO that the industry has been making huge efforts to reduce false alarms with the result that these are now at their lowest level ever “per system”.
Now South Yorkshire’s announcement has caused concern that ACPO unity is being further eroded. From August 1 ARCs must pass on calls via premium rate lines at a cost of £1.50 per minute, adding a big extra charge, especially when secondary calls have to be made when keyholders are not available. This charge will have to be passed on to the end user.
Tim Geddes, BSIA Systems Sector Chairman, speaking at a conference called by BT RedCARE, said the association was in dispute with South Yorkshire over the proposal. In both the West Midlands and South Yorkshire cases, police had given less than six weeks notice of the changes. He called for better consultation between the police and industry via the ACPO Liaison Committee. In drawing up the 5th draft of the ACPO 2000 Policy, 43 police authorities were consulted.“Why do we have these worrying breaks from the party line?”
False alarms had been reduced by ten per cent over four years – a testament to the good working relationship between the industry and police.
“This successful coalition seems to be forgotten by some”, he said, adding that the BSIA preferred to co-operate with the police rather than confront them. “The BSIA uses confrontation only as a last resort.”
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Security Installer
