Revised ACPO Policy on Police Response 2014

The changes to the Policy are mainly editorial and no increases to Unique Reference Number (URN) fees have been set.  There are some changes however that may be of interest to those working within the industry and we have highlighted these below:

• If a keyholder is not available for any reason (e.g. sickness or holiday) a replacement must be provided to cover the period of unavailability (see 2.8.2).
• Requests for police response should only come from Alarm Receiving Centres.  Keyholders should not contact the police asking for their attendance unless they have arrived at the protected premises and there is a crime in progress or a crime has been committed (see 2.8.5).
• The administration fee charged by police forces must be clearly highlighted in writing to customers purchasing systems.  Misrepresentation of the amount of the fee charged by the police will be deemed fraudulent action and may result in legal action against the offending company (see 2.11.5).
• False alarm withdrawal thresholds for CCTV systems are the same as Intruder Alarm Systems (see 3.3.1).
• There are new rules relating to advertising material (see 4.5.2) and new rules about companies engaged in telesales techniques (see 4.5.3).
• Appendix C (disclosure of convictions) contains some additional important requirements at (xiv), (xv) and (xvi).
• Section 4 of Appendix E (administration charges) allows 90 days to take over the URNs from another company and includes change of name or franchisee.
• BS 8591 and the BS EN 50518 series are acceptable for new ARC approvals.

Those wishing to obtain the revised version of the ACPO Security Systems Policy may download this from the Secured by Design website. Download the Policy here

Customers of security services are advised to contact their service provider in the first instance, if they have any queries.