However, change is not yet over for the sector due to the imminent introduction of amendments to the Association of Chief Police Officers’ (ACPO) ‘Policy on Police Response to Security Systems’. The changes – enforced from 1 April 2006 – will have significant consequences for the end users of monitored intruder alarms that require immediate police response.
The revised ACPO document will affect the number of false activations a given system is allowed before police response is withdrawn. Currently, a system is allowed five false activations prior to police response being withdrawn. That tally is to be reduced to three in order to try and cut back on the amount of police time wasted in attending false activations. ACPO has agreed that this number will not change again for at least three years.
The other alteration that will be made affects the level of response from the police service. Level 2 (routine) response to an alarm will be removed entirely. This means that, after 1 April 2006, systems that comply with the policy will receive a Level 1 (immediate) response and then, following three false alarm activations, the level of response will automatically be cut back to Level 3 (no response).
Clearly, the changes will have a number of consequences for alarm system end users. To ease this transition, the BSIA has requested that ACPO ask ALL of its police service constabularies to zero their counts of existing false alarm activations on 31 March this year. n
– Alex Carmichael is technical services director at the British Security Industry Association (www.bsia.co.uk)
– Readers of SMT who would like further information, or wish to download a copy of the ACPO Policy, should take a look at www.acpo.police.uk
