I’ve been patiently waiting for some UK alarm industry statistics to be published but as they are still nowhere to be seen, I decided to take a detailed look at our own data instead…

Since the 01st of January 2006

• 94% of the alarm activations we attended were ‘False Alarms’
• User error,  system problems and line faults generated the majority of these unnecessary activations
• We attended 76% of alarms within 30 minutes – 24hrs a day, 7 days a week
• Of these, our average response time was just 17.5 minutes
• System faults meant that 23% of alarms required an engineer to attend site
• Engineers took an average of 2 hours, 12 minutes to arrive on site
• The Police were in attendance at just 3% of the total alarm activations

A false alarm rate of 94% naturally equates to a 6% burglary rate. Whenever our trained ‘Patrol & Response Officers’ discover a break-in, they liaise with the Police to minimise losses and immediately re-secure the premises using approved, 24-hour Locksmiths and Glaziers.

Surprisingly, many businesses and public sector organisations still use staff members to carry out this potentially life threatening duty. They’re expected to respond immediately at any time of the day or night, usually on their own and without the benefit of any prior training, experience or back up! Who’s going to look after the ‘lone worker’ and regularly check on their welfare in this situation? Please, if you know anyone that still uses employees as Key Holders, help them to protect themselves from prosecution under the “Corporate Manslaughter Act” and get them to call KeyPlus on 0800 783 1025

National Statistics

Last years national statistics showed a monitored false alarm rate of 89%, which is incredibly high considering the technology available today. This figure also showed that the Police are wasting huge amounts of valuable resources attending 9 out of 10 alarms unnecessarily.

Police Response

Let’s be completely honest, even if organisations do manage to retain a Level 1 Police Response for their monitored alarm system – what do they expect them to do upon arrival? Could the Police carry out a full external patrol of the premises or would they need to start climbing perimeter fencing? Do they hold keys, what about the code for the alarm, the password for the alarm receiving centre? Do they hold an up to date list of company representatives who they could contact?

This isn’t a dig at the Police by any means. They have higher priorities to attend to than responding to commercial alarms that in 90%  of cases, are a complete waste of their time and the tax payers money…