Current affairs: Wrong end of the beast

I often think it's a good jpb the the police aren't run as a profit-making operation – they would have gone bust years ago, and the current ACPO policy has reinforced my belief. But before the condemnation starts and the letters pour in, let me state that I support the police and the need for an ACPO policy 100 per cent. I just disagree with the direction they are taking.

First, the police are under-funded and short staffed. This tit-bit of information has been the mainstay of many a political editorial in almost every newspaper in the land, so for once I am prepared to believe what I read in the papers. Yet our industry is piling extra work on the police at a ridiculous rate and I think it grossly unfair. We are still banging in substandard systems that false alarm with monotonous regularity and then wonder why the police get tough.

It is my belief that the police are on a hiding to nothing by reducing the false alarm threshold once again – it just won't work. It is very much like the country vet having to deal with a huge constipated beast: he is lifting the tail and inserting his arm in the orifice to relieve the blockage when he should be looking at a long-term solution by controlling the food going in the other end. The parallel, of course, is that the police are trying to reduce false alarms by removing troublesome systems when the real problem is the vast amount of new, unsuitable systems being added at the other end. I think ACPO should be looking at ways to reduce the number of problematical systems BEFORE they are installed, not after they have wasted precious time and taxpayers' money.

See the evidence for yourself
You only have to wander around a few shops in town to see the evidence of inferior systems for yourself. You don't need a degree to see a control panel in full view with a BT telephone block next to it to suss out that it is on response from someone somewhere – probably the police.

Looking more closely, I often see that the control itself is of the domestic variety, manufactured on the cheap to satisfy the public demand for cheaper installations, and therefore totally unsuitable for the place where it is being used. There is no time-and-date recording and probably very little memory. Cheaper controls are a lot more susceptible to all forms of interference, and yet here it is in the centre of town with taxis radioing around 24 hours a day and heavy-duty shop lights on timers spiking the mains every night. And we wonder why they false alarm.

I also see cheapo PIRs sat looking at a draughty aluminium shop door, or placed in full view of swinging cardboard signs driven by a huge fan heater run on a time-switch. And ordinary, light-duty surface mount reed switches fixed to the same, rather loosely locked aluminium doors, when we all know that metal doors often 'suck out' the magnetism and reduce the working gap.

I also note a surprising number of shops with exit buzzers still singing away merrily at pub closing time. They have probably been singing since the shop was closed at 6pm and the alarm set by untrained or uncaring staff – so much for the dreaded push-to-set button. Once again, this only tends to happen with the 'economy' range of control panels. The catalogue of failings goes on and on and yet there is little the inspectorates can do about it because the systems conform to both BS and the ACPO policy – that is until the police start insisting on a higher specification for systems, the same as the insurance companies do.

Problems solved, the Lynskey way!
OK, it's easy for me to use this column to pick spots and condemn someone else's hard work, but that is not the object of the exercise. Here are my suggestions (not for the first time) for ways to address the problems.

As I stated earlier, it is pointless trying to get rid of the troublesome systems when new problem ones are being added at a far higher rate. The police and the industry are just going to have to admit that fact. Also, we have all heard the rumours that the police are going to stop responding at all in the near future, but I can't see that happening – not entirely anyway, because the police are funded from the public purse.

The population is currently split into the haves and have-nots. Those with a communicator system take the attitude that, "I pay my rates – I want a copper here when my bell rings," and to some degree I can see their point. Yet those without a response have just as much right to say, "Why should I pay for the police to go poncing around after someone else, giving them preferential treatment?" I can also see their point.

Perhaps the answer is for the police to find a way of charging for their services, and then if you want police response only you pay for it, not everyone else. The new ACPO policy has made a start by allowing the police to charge up to £30 for the admin involved in setting up the URN, and they are insisting that the cheque comes from the customer, not the alarm company.

That is a brilliant move, because it stops the unscrupulous alarm companies from bumping up their prices and blaming the police. It also stops them from applying for a URN for every system they fit, even if they have no intention of fitting a communicator. This may seem like a silly thing to do, until you work out that if you have 2,000 systems with URNs listed, but only 200 connected, your false alarm management figures are going to look good even if your systems are crap. At least with the new charges you are going to have to pay for that privilege. But then the ACPO policy falls down.

The payment should be repayable annually, but only on the production of a service docket from a recognised company. The extra income derived from this would help the police to fund the men and machines required to respond.

We are still banging in substandard systems that false alarm ... and then wonder why the police get tough

The next problem is a ticklish one. We all pay our rates and we have every right as a citizen to see a couple of blue uniforms and a motorised marmalade sandwich appear pretty damned quick when we are in trouble. No-one is arguing that point, least of all the police. It is the wasting of police time on false alarms that gets up the collective police nose and they have every right to feel aggrieved about it.

Two-pronged attack
Here we need a two-pronged attack. First, we have to get rid of the inferior stuff before it is installed, so perhaps the ACPO policy should have specified that all systems must have time-and-date recording and a 250-event memory. Or, better still, go for uploading and downloading as a minimum requirement. Perhaps they should also specify nothing less than quad PIRs or dual tech detectors, and heavy-duty magnetic reed switches.

Installers should be trained on the control panels they install (by the manufacturers) before being allowed to commission the systems, and the end user should be trained before being given keys and codes. Properly enforced and monitored by the inspectorates, this would help to reduce false alarms before the system is connected.

Secondly, the police should charge for attending false alarms under the banner of wasting police time. My suggestion is for the first false alarm to be free, the second £50, and the third and all subsequent false alarms £100 plus a compulsory chargeable inspection by the inspectorate involved.

I think that if you hit both the installer and the customer in the pocket then corrective action and cures will follow fast. Then, by raising the thresholds again to a reasonable level and allowing for some form of negotiation before the response is cut off, the customer can at least hang on to his insurance (and possibly his business) a little longer. If, after all that, the system still causes problems, the police can fall back on the existing policy and refuse to respond. You could say we are hitting them from both sides. I prefer to look at it as an 'all-win' situation.

There are distinct benefits from this. The police, who are currently seen by both installer and customer as inflexible and unreasonable, would be seen as understanding – perhaps even helpful – and the inspectorates would get to see more of the communicated systems installed and be able to lean harder on the installer to improve quality.

Basically, if we all got together and aimed for quality and control we could do a lot more to resolve the problems of false alarms – and that would only be to the collective good.

PA confirmation? I don't think so
On a slightly different tack, several installers have brought the subject of confirmed alarms to my attention, and in particular the confirmation of PA alarms. The general opinion seems to be that having to confirm PA activation will be totally unworkable. From what I can gather from my inspectorate bosses, there is still some doubt about how this will be achieved, but as it will not be enforced before October, we still have time to argue the point. My advice is that if you feel strongly about it, write to your inspectorate and request that your letter be forwarded to ACPO.

I cannot see at this point how we can have a workable confirmed PA – my vote is to make PA exempt. I do, however, have severe misgivings about the whole idea of confirmation. My contention is that a rogue installer could install the cheapest possible equipment, add something like a speech dialler with a listening device, feed the whole lot through a non-registered ARC, and then get them to phone the police on 999. If voices or other unexpected noises can be heard where there shouldn't be, then could the police realistically refuse to turn out? All hell will break loose in the national press if they don't.

Let me give you a likely scenario. In a domestic property, the owner part sets his system and goes to bed. He then falls asleep watching TV (don't laugh – it happens). At some point during the night, a false alarm occurs, the ARC listens in and hears screaming and gunshots from the telly. They relay what they hear to the police and, once again, the police are off on a wild goose chase (with the best intentions), perhaps even "tooled up with shooters" as they used to put it on The Sweeney.

My point is that if the ACPO requirement stakes are pushed up too high, then installation costs will follow. Life for the 'legitimate' installer is going to get very tough because many customers will be tempted to ignore the inspectorate-recognised companies and opt for cheaper systems from non-recognised companies who would get the same 'service' from the police without having to pay for it.

But the really dreadful thing is that the police will no longer have the ACPO big stick ("we will remove your URN") to hit non-recognised installers, customers or rogue ARCs with, because they will have lost control. Perhaps one answer would be to fine the non-recognised installers, customers and ARCs £500 each per false alarm and threaten legal proceedings if they continue to waste police time.