No one listened to us

I have been in this industry longer than Carl. As he states, technical advances have been in place to improve not only the ability to detect but to reduce false alarms for many years now, and have been used by the better large and small installers alike. Unfortunately such technology was not accepted by many others, resulting in much wasted police time via false alarms and worse still, burglaries with no response.

As for standards in name, be it BS4737, PD6662 or BS50131 etc etc, they only invoke the way that the better companies already worked, for there is little in a name other than confusion.

As for risk assessment – the problem is not that it is not carried out, but that there are few and far between who can prove that they are competent in carrying out such a task, despite the security industry, having repeatedly advertised methods over the last twenty years. A few examples are City & Guilds 7277 and various universities (for example Leicester, with the Scarman Centre, and a long established choice of courses from taster to diploma to MSC and beyond to Phd).

As for technical issues – it may well be that problems would have been avoided if the great and good adhered to the views of engineers, rather than un-elected bodies such as ACPO, who have failed year after year to reduce crime and on the whole would have problems changing a fuse.

As for Insurers – it may well be advisable to accept that they will ignore any area that may reduce a potential profit. They have little interest in crime reduction or safety, but a great interest in profit share. As such they may agree to anything despite its stupidity. A prime example may well be a certain type of lock fitted to many areas of both business and private areas in the UK that is easily picked, with no sign of damage and yet is accepted by the insurance industry. I only mention this as I have recently come across burglaries with no proven sign of entry and suspect that a few have learned the secret of this type of insurance-accepted lock.

As for grading – this is an issue that should be down to the proven qualified engineer or assessor and not a person who has done a few hours in a firm’s classroom, having been given a check list (ref C&G and universities as mentioned above). The police, or should I say ACPO, have abandoned the people of the UK, by a total lack of concern over burglary and even 24/7 panic signals. Such a lack of concern may well have led in part to regrettable injuries not only to the public but to police officers.

As for architects and builders – the designing out of crime is difficult, when balanced against productivity, but not impossible. Many builders are installing alarm systems that not only do not meet the requirements of this industry, but ignore B7671 and yet are not picked up by either the ECA or the local government building inspectors. It leaves a potential danger to the general public, who will blame (should a death occur), the alarm industry, who did not install the potentially dangerous equipment.

To sort this mess out, we need a simple licence system, that states the following.

1. The installer is qualified

2. The assessor who may also be an installer and engineer is qualified.

It should be a criminal offence to either give an assessment or install or repair or in any way be associated to security within the UK, without such a licence. This should carry a prison term of no less than six months. As for ACPO, forget this (once useful) un-elected body,which is now targeting essential workers via traffic restrictions, whilst ignoring the drug dealers and others of ill repute trading in view of the same police officers.

J G Torrance

www.thealarmengineer.co.uk