I DON'T WANT TO ALARM YOU BUT...

I hear there's another ACPO policy on the starting blocks. At the time of writing I don't know exactly what plans they are but I can make a few educated guesses. I can also guess the reasoning behind a new policy. Yes, there is an improvement in false alarm figures per system installed, but new systems are being installed at an alarming rate (nice one Mike ... Ed.) so there is bound to be a steady increase in the number of false alarms that the police have to attend. Even a thick Yorkshireman can work that one out.

My guess is that there will be a further tightening of the rules and standards aimed at reducing these rates. I can't say I blame them. To have the police attending all those false alarms must be costing us (the taxpayers) more per year than the combined gross earnings of several third world countries ... or the Spice Girls' clothes bill.

Let me be blunt about it ... the first culprit is you, the installer. It all boils down to a lack of proper installer training and expertise, followed by the use of some poorer quality equipment. It's topped off by a whacking great slice of customer error, or more to the point, customer ignorance. Worse of all is the customer's "I don't give a sod" attitude.

Unfortunately the police have only one weapon at their disposal and that is the ACPO policy, so their only course of action is to tighten the screws. We, however, could do a lot more, especially if the installing and manufacturing sectors got their collective heads together with the police and the insurance people. Let's start with the dangers of tightening the screws. If ACPO decides to reduce the false alarm threshold levels again or introduces another rule like the ill fated push-to-set button it could well prompt a lot of companies to abandon their inspectorates and the ACPO policy altogether. They could then turn to installing cheaper equipment with some form of verification and then passing the call via a non recognised Alarm Receiving Centre straight to the police without the benefit of a URN.

If you can give reasonable indication that there are intruders on the premises how can the police fail to respond – even to a non-URN system? If they apply the rule currently practised for bells-only systems and insist that a keyholder attend first, there could be real trouble. Think of the public outcry if the police insisted a keyholder be first to attend a verified alarm and that person was harmed, or even killed, by the intruders. It doesn't bear thinking about.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

My worry is that a further tightening of the screw would make abandoning the inspectorates far more appealing , leading to more and more companies saying nuts to the ACPO policy. At that point false alarms will rocket upwards instead of falling.

Whatever you think about the inspectorates, they are committed to raising standards and keeping them there. They are the police's only allies within the industry. If we remove the necessity to be inspectorate recognised we have then lost all the control we have.

The police are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot. If they do tighten up and force installers away from the inspectorates it will effectively pass the control of the industry into the hands of the insurance companies who will be the only people still able to insist on an inspectorate recognised system as a requirement for insurance cover.

OK, it's easy to shout down someone else's efforts, so what can we (the industry) do about it? For a start the police could insist on a higher level of equipment used and a new level of software introduced. They have already set a precedent for this when they introduced the Class 6 only rule for wire free installations.

We need to insist on engineer product training. In other words, no one should be allowed to install or commission the equipment until he or she had received suitable training from the manufacturers.

We already have the technology to improve on or build new anti-false alarm features into existing equipment. Take the average detector ... it already has to latch and hold for a certain length of time to allow the control to "see" that activation and not confuse it with a spike or some form of interference. If we could take that a stage further and set that hold time accurately for say five seconds, the control could then be programmed to count the activations against the clock and react in the stepped manner.

At the first activation it would fire the inside sounders to warn off intruders. If a second activation were received from the same detector within, say, a further ten seconds, it would then add the outside sounders to attract the public. The final stage would be if there was a third activation from the same detector within a further ten seconds. Then, and only then, does it fire the communicator.

For systems with bell delay it could be: action to key-holders first; engineer reset required for the second; and action to the police for the third. All these levels of activation could be logged for the engineer to sort out the problems later, and the first stage could be customer reset to help with keeping the bills down following customer error. To re-enforce that, there would have to be something written into the programme to require an engineer reset if there were more than, say, three customer resets. I know that it will make programming and commissioning the systems a lot less engineer friendly but if it cuts down the number of false alarms then it has to be looked at. And that brings me nicely to the next point: We need to insist on engineer product training. In other words, no one should be allowed to install or commission the equipment until he or she had received suitable training from the manufacturers. This could be taken a stage further by the issue of a "commissioning certificate" to the engineer. The inspectorates have already got the expertise and experience to do the certification, it could even be made into a separate NVQ. The issue of that certificate could also be dependent upon the commissioning engineer proving his competence not only in the products he is fitting but also the training of customers and key-holders.

The key-holder/alarm user must also be suitably trained. How often have we come across a situation where the alarm company has installed a system, properly trained the key-holders and ended with a good sound system with no false alarms. Then the key-holder has left and his job given to someone else who is totally untrained ... and the false alarms start.

All too many key-holder/users are not fully aware of the ramifications of their mistakes. I often hear remarks like "Oh yes, the police turned up again last night, ha ha ha! I said it was nothing to do with me and referred them to the manager, ha ha ha! The manager had to come out and wait for the alarm man".

All users must be made aware of the implications of this kind of stupidity and made to sign a declaration of understanding to that effect. They don't realise that if (because of their stupidity) the alarm is taken off police response, then the contents insurance is probably invalid and if there is yet another break-in it may be just enough to bankrupt the company and they and all their workmates would be out of a job. Who but an idiot would be daft enough to do that?

EXIT LEFT ... ARMED WITH A P45

Don't answer that. I've met enough of them, just as you have. One of the "clauses" in the declaration of understanding should be that the user understands that repeated irresponsible action of that nature will result in a quick exit from the company with his P45 in his hot sticky little hand. Not to mention the negative reference from his former employers and the strong possibility that there will be no dole money because he was sacked for misconduct. My suggestion for the way forward is for manufacturers to give us the three-stage triple knock equipment, or something like it. No one is then allowed to install or commission the system until trained and "licensed". And no one is allowed to operate (or keyhold for) a communicated system until they have an "operators certificate" or have signed a declaration of understanding. I'm sure it would be a far more positive way to get false alarms down. The police would have to make the informal licence a condition of getting and keeping a URN. The insurance companies could also insist on much the same thing.