False alarm attendance costs fall by £24 million over last decade

Organisers of the Metropolitan Police Service’s annual Alarm Performance Awards have stated that, over the past decade, there has been a “massive drop” in the number of false alarms produced by the 274,000 monitored security systems within the Met’s jurisdictional boundaries. In line with this, the police service ‘cost’ of attending false call-outs has tailed off by £24 million in the same period.

Speaking at this year’s Awards ceremony – held at New Scotland Yard on 9 June – chief superintendent Stephen MacDonald (who is tasked with leading the MetCall Unit) said: “The ever-improving performance of companies installing and monitoring alarm systems means that fewer false alarms demanding a police presence on site are being generated. That is freeing up officers to attend true alarms and incidents, which can only benefit public safety.”

MacDonald added: “At the same time, reducing the number of false call-outs also produces more efficient use of public funds. The Met estimates the cost of officers attending false alarms has fallen from the equivalent of £32.85 million in 1996 to around £8.85 million this year.”

These excellent results were honoured at the Awards. Presented in association with BT RedCARE, they celebrate the ongoing work of 1,100 alarm installers, the British Security Industry Association and the National Security Inspectorate in reducing the number of false alarms through efficient management procedures and partnership initiatives forged with the Metropolitan Police Service.

As ever, the 2006 ‘competition’ was divided into three categories, encompassing small companies (those managing between 50 and 999 systems), medium-sized operations (looking after 1,000-4,999 systems) and larger outfits administering over 5,000 active systems. The winners in the three main categories are those with the best false alarm rate per system as determined by the Metropolitan Police Service’s Alarm Data Management System database.

In 2006, the companies honoured are:

Small Companies

Gold Award: Rampart Security
Silver Award: Home Counties
Bronze Award: So Secure

Medium Companies

Gold Award: Capstan
Silver Award: London East Security Centre
Bronze Award: Tara Burglar Alarms

Large Companies

Gold Award: Banham Alarms
Silver Award: Secom plc
Bronze Award: Chubb Electronic Security

Two new Metropolitan Police Service Awards were added this year – for Contribution to Reducing False Alarms (won by the BSIA) and The Development of the Electronic Transfer of Alarm Activations in Partnership with the Metropolitan Police Service. The latter award was bestowed upon Chubb Electronic Security.