"The London Keyholding Company has achieved a very high standard," he told guests at London's Café Royal. "Now they are the first to achieve this award and we are delighted."
Fred Herring commented: "The company is growing nicely. We are the best, though not the cheapest – nor the dearest." Mr Herring and co-director David Clowes have decades of experience in the industry.
Twenty minute deadline
According to Metropolitan and City of London Police regulations, keyholders must be capable of attending their premises within 20 minutes of being notified their alarm has been activated. For around a pound a day, LKC relieves keyholders of this responsibility.
When an alarm is triggered, the permanently manned control centre is notified. A trained keyguard is despatched to reach the premises, disable the alarm system, secure the premises and initiate any emergency action, such as repairing the system or arranging temporary repairs to secure the building. The company is dedicated solely to keyholding duties.
Industry has risen to challenge
The installation industry has successfully risen to the challenge of ACPO 2000, the Security Systems Committee secretary, Inspector Kevin Mann, told the gathering. "The police and the installation industry have been at their most effective when working together," he said.
"In London last year we saw a drop of 13 per cent in the total number of false calls, and average false calls per system per year down from 0.75 to 0.7. As at April 13 it had dropped again to 0.636 so in just over three months we are seeing greater reductions than the whole of last year, so things are gathering momentum.
"However, nationally 90 per cent of alarm calls are still false and the police dealt with 870,000 false calls last year, an opportunity cost of £87 million."
Insp Mann said the Met had recently stopped keeping keyholder records and now relies on the keyholding facilities of Alarm Receiving Centres for remotely monitored systems.
But Tim Geddes, chairman of the security system section of the British Security Industry Association, said false alarms were not really reducing, but increasing as far as Alarm Receiving Centres were concerned. "It highlights how valuable ARCs are, they are not given credit for filtering," he said.
He added that the lack of keyholders (apart from 'fumble-fingered' ones) was a big bugbear of the industry.
Source
Security Installer
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