Ostrich syndrome

In the January 1997 edition of Security Management Today, Ray Le’Monde predicted that there would eventually be a two-tier level of response to intruder alarm activation’s, with the police only attending to calls that could be verified as genuine. This type of response, according to Mr Le’Monde at the time, would force the alarm companies to ‘put their house in order’.

Three years later, in the January 2000 edition of the same publication, Mr Le’Monde is complaining bitterly because his prediction may come true. Is he complaining because he believes that the industry has indeed put its house in order? Or is it that he exhibits the typical self-satisfied ostrich syndrome exhibited by many leaders of the industry and its inspectorates.

It would seem his justification against further constrictions on the industry from the ACPO Policy is based on the reduction in the number of alarm calls passed to the police that has been achieved over the past few years — a reduction entirely due to improved abort procedures used by central stations and not to improvements in the quality of alarm installations. In truth the actual level of false alarms is still much higher than it ought to be and the ACPO Policy, as the only effective regulator of the industry, is still attempting to force alarm companies to put their house in order. Meanwhile, the industry and its inspectorates seem unable or unwilling to do so themselves.

I have spent over 30 years in the industry, 25 as an engineer and the past six in a first line supervisory position. It is during these latter years that I have gained qualifications in management and performed research into false alarms for an MSc in Security Management at Leicester University.

During this period there have been many changes to the industry, but the basic problem of false alarms has never been effectively addressed. If Mr Le’Monde took the time to go back to the grass roots of intruder systems engineering, I believe he would have reason to modify his view that there is not a problem at present.

While the ACPO policy is not perfect it has been the prime mover in raising standards within the intruder alarm industry in recent years. However, as far as quality and reliability of intruder alarm systems is concerned, there is still a long way to go and any proposed changes to the existing policy are designed to ensure that the quality of installed systems is improved.

True cost of false alarms

While there is obviously a cost aspect to the attendance of the police to premises where there has been an alarm activation, this is not the only cost involved. How does one quantify the cost of keyholder and intruder alarm engineer attendance to false alarms and the cost of extra insurance or manned guarding where police response has been removed due to the poor performance of the intruder alarm? This cost alone must run into millions of pounds.

Statistically the arrest rate from genuine activations does seem poor. However, these statistics should be examined in the knowledge that nine out of 10 times when the police attend an alarm call it proves to be false. There is no point in putting the lives of the general public at risk by police cars speeding through urban areas to attend an alarm call when the chances are it will be a false alarm.

Qualifications and training

My own research and police statistics indicate that the majority of false alarms are generated by the users of systems. This is often due to lack of training on the use and management of intruder alarm systems.

Surely alarm installers and maintainers must shoulder some of the blame for this situation, for it is the people who install systems who are the experts. They owe a duty of care to their clients to ensure that adequate training and information is passed on to the client.

All too often the client receives a modicum of training at the hand-over stage which consists of little more than ‘put your code in here and leave by that door’. Many false alarms classed as customer error could be avoided by better initial design and comprehensive training on the use and management of intruder alarm systems.

The intruder alarm industry is extremely competitive, with low profit margins, and the emphasis is on sales revenue. It is an unfortunate fact that economic considerations will over-ride codes of practice. Very few surveyors possess qualifications of any kind, many coming into the industry with a proven record of sales in the insurance industry or similar sales background and after a short period of ‘on the job training’ are designing and selling systems.

Ray Le’Monde contends that false alarms from poorly designed systems is an obsolete view. This is erroneous as electronic detection equipment is still being sited in unsuitable positions and environments, but the advances in technology have allowed the devices to be more forgiving of these failings.

False alarms from intruder alarm systems are usually attended by the installing or maintaining company’s service engineer. Whilst most service engineers are conscientious and customer orientated, the diagnosis of the cause of false alarms is often hampered by ignorance due to lack of training and experience. Where systems have been poorly designed or installed the problems are often too extensive to allow service engineers to ameliorate the situation. Where such is the case it is impossible for engineers in the field to condemn a system that has been installed by the company he is working for.

In these situations problems are often allowed to fester until response is withdrawn and the installing company is forced to put the problems right or, as is often the case, reduce the level of detection by replacing PIRs with dual technology detectors.

Few practitioners within the industry and their management possess the basic knowledge of how systems work. For instance, one senior manager informed me that insects, such as spiders, do not activate PIRs and that if an engineer ascertained this had happened the offending insect was to be attached to his work docket.

My research, performed in 1998, found that very few engineers within the industry possess any formal qualifications or have had training in the codes of practice for the industry (Table 1).

I have little reason to believe that the situation has changed in the subsequent 12 months.

The Security Industry Training Organisation (SITO) does organise courses for the industry but, in my experience, few engineers are aware of the organisation or have the chance to participate in the courses. In a highly competitive industry where profits are low some employers are taking a short-term view that employees on training courses are not producing, whilst others find course fees prohibitive.

A personal view

I do not owe allegiance to any official organisation within the industry and the observations expressed here are based purely on personal experience. I do not want to see the police withdraw further away from attendance to premise’s after an alarm activation as they are the best authority to deal with crime.

I also believe that there should be a registration fee for a unique reference number, based on the size of the system. This might allow a more flexible approach to police response because, while system reliability can certainly be improved, realistically false alarms will never be totally eradicated. A large premises with many detection devices should be allowed more activations before the police take punitive action.

The police and their alarm officers do not trust the alarm companies. Could it be that they have a better grasp of the grass roots situation than alarm companies senior management and the representatives of their regulatory organisations?

ACPO policies have become harsher over recent years because the industry is unable, or unwilling, to put its house in order. Improvements will not happen while senior management and members of an inspectorate, funded by the alarm companies, bury their heads in the sand, ignoring the real situation at grass roots level.

The inspection of systems should be more than a paper exercise. Not only new systems should be inspected but systems that have supposedly been maintained. There should also be real penalties for non-conformity with codes of practice. Once the police see that the root causes of false alarms are being addressed, perhaps future ACPO policies will become more flexible.