In the wake of endless debates, the somewhat grandly-titled ACPO policy on ‘Police Response to Security Systems’ finally came into effect on 1 January this year.
As most industry commentators predicted, the Association of Chief Police Officers’ (ACPO) Council has confirmed that police response to alarm calls received by a monitoring centre will be cut back to Level 2 following two false alarm calls in any rolling 12-month period.
In addition, all responses will be withdrawn after a further three false calls in the same timescale. These figures are down from three and six respectively (except in greater London, where the Met Police was already operating on two false calls to a Level 2 call-out).
Once alarm response is withdrawn, police response to any further (suspected) security breaches will only be restored if there are no false alarms for a three-month period – and even then only if an alarm installation is upgraded to provide confirmed activation.
So what does all this mean in real terms? Well, Level 2 response effectively signals that the police will attend a given building or site when they’ve finished more important business. It’s true that many of the 43 police forces in the UK and Wales do have set attendance time targets for Level 2 responses, as they do for Level 1.However, they are slow enough as to be almost academic. No security manager wants his premises to be on a Level 2 response list any more than they want responses to be withdrawn altogether.
A complication arises for the occupiers of premises that have reached two or five false alarms (under the present standards), and believe they have a cushion of one more false alarm before their responses are reduced or they are struck off the list altogether.
As of 1 January – or whenever their particular police force introduces the new ACPO measures – their premises could well be penalised automatically.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, the Metropolitan Police Force is seemingly the most advanced when it comes to implementing the new measures. Inspector Kevin Mann, head of the Intruder Alarms Unit, has a simple message for concerned security managers.
“Don’t panic. If in any doubt contact us directly at the Intruder Alarms Unit and we’ll discuss each individual case according to its own particular merits”.
The British Security Industry Association (BSIA) and various installers’ representatives have voiced grave concerns over system upgrades. At the end of the day, they say, it all boils down to adding system confirmation, which – as from 1 October – applies to all new alarm installations, and those which have ‘lost’ police response but need to be reinstated on the call-out list.
Adding alarm system confirmation
Confirmation technology includes sequential activation, sound monitoring in the form of audio sensors or the addition of CCTV.
All new remotely-monitored alarm systems will have to be equipped with such technology right from the word ‘go’. If this isn’t the case, the police will not issue the necessary legislation for a Level 1 response (ie immediate attendance at the scene). And they will not attend unless the monitoring centre can definitely say it has confirmed the alarm as genuine. Must every site be equipped with this apparent degree of system ‘overkill’? Speaking on behalf of ACPO, Alan McInnes (general manager of ACPO’s Crime Prevention Initiative, and the man who stitched the new policy document together) takes a lenient line.
McInness told SMT that confirmation could include such apparent ‘mishaps’ as an alarm activation followed by a line failure (as well as the loss of both signals from all those systems equipped with dual communications).
Such comments offer a reasonable interpretation of the new policy although, somewhat intriguingly, they also place a question mark over what police forces must then accept as confirmation technology on either new or reinstated systems. Surely all remotely-monitored systems already boast that degree of ‘confirmation’ ability? McInness adds that he hopes all monitoring centres will state – without having to be asked – just what pattern of events led them to conclude that an alarm was in fact confirmed.
Upgraded policy on panic alarms
Another concern voiced by security managers is that confirmation would also be needed on panic alarms. After all, by the time a confirmation procedure has been completed, the victim activating the alarm could well have suffered a fatal injury…
ACPO has stepped back from that, exempting panic alarms from the mainstream need for technical confirmation. It has also asked the BSIA for ideas about panic alarms’ ‘formal’ treatment. Meantime, the Metropolitan Police Force (while requiring no confirmation for the few ‘top risk’ Grade 3 and 4 alarms out there) expects to find at least some form of filtering of alarm calls made from lower risk Grade 1 and 2 set-ups. This is not retrospective, however, applying only to new systems.
One remaining bone of contention from earlier ACPO policy drafts concerned hazards on the alarmed premises. Understandably, the police want to know what they are walking into when they arrive – whether it be highly toxic substances or hazardous pieces of machine plant. The early ACPO draft seemed to place the onus firmly on monitoring centres to provide this information, and ensure their clients kept police fully informed about any changes.
According to McInnes, the intention is that monitoring centres will simply be the means by which occupiers are handed the forms to send to the police when they are first taken on as clients. The onus is on building occupiers – in real terms the security managers – to make sure the local police force is kept fully up-to-speed.
The Metropolitan Police Force Alarms Unit has written to occupiers already registered with them for this information. To ease the burden, this process is being completed in phases – beginning this month.
McInnes suggests that such a procedure might well become the norm in all forces, both to remind occupiers to update them and (more ominously for the less ethical monitoring centres out there) to keep site Unique Reference Number (URN) records up-to-date. Apparently, certain monitoring centres keep all old URNs on their books to make their false alarm rate ‘look good’.
Tony Lake, chairman of the ACPO Alarms Group and Deputy Chief Constable of the British Transport Police, told SMT: “We are extremely concerned at the rate of false calls, and the waste of police time in responding to them.” Lake insists that the overriding objective of the new alarms policy is to reduce call rates, at the same time making police attendance far more efficient and effective. He is adamant that the new ACPO policy will achieve both goals.
No-one can argue with a basic desire to reduce false alarms from their current level (which stands at a staggering 90% or more). Where, though, asks the discerning security manager, does charging for police response come into the equation?
URNs and the administration charges
Levying an administration charge for the URN by which a monitored alarm system may be identified is a mature practice that’s well accepted in the industry. To this end, ACPO has set the current maximum at a ceiling of GB pound 30 (to be reviewed every 2-3 years). However, this is a ‘one-off’ charge that doesn’t apply to the call-out itself. There will be charges not just for new installations, but for changes of name, confirmation and reinstatement after an installation has been withdrawn from the list.
One of the appendices to the new policy contains a clause allowing police forces to install premium rate ‘phone lines on those numbers used by monitoring centres to summon assistance. Although not new, when the South Yorkshire force tried this last summer it ran into a legal challenge from the BSIA.
Under the new proposals, monitoring centres will incur a charge every time they call out a police response. Is that not contrary to the political principle of the police service being ‘free’ at the point of provision?
