The Application of the NPCC Security Systems Policy

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Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.24.032956

I note you seek access to the following information:

Request with Reference to The constabulary’s Perceived Application of the NPCC Security Systems Policy. With reference to the above Policy, I ask the following questions regarding the training of your new communications centre staff namely those who receive calls and/or deploy a police resource to incidents. This includes the supervisors of such staff and the senior officer in charge of the comms centre:

1. What is documented regarding the above staff being informed that your chief constable has banned the failed Type A systems that lose their Unique Reference Number (URN) from contacting your police communications centre on initial activation? These have therefore joined the Type B alarms in no longer having a URN, namely those that refuse to abide by the policy. This matter of education is relevant to the correct application of the Codes of Ethics of Fairness, Honesty, Integrity, Accountability. These are essential requirements to the application of the Code of Ethics and the National Decision Model.

2. What is documented about the above staff being educated in the requirement of a Keyholder to firstly attend all premises without a URN as per your published policy, namely the premises with the Type B and Failed Type A activations are to be treated the same? (See sections 3.1.1. Level Three – Withdrawn, and 3.6.4.)

3. If there is no documentation to 3) above, what documentation is there to explain to the alarm purchasing public that clearly states the Type B and Withdrawn Type A can be treated differently, namely the Type B alarms can always be considered for attendance but the failed Type A’s never can be, having been banned from contact by your chief constable?

4. What is documented about the training given to new communications centre staff on the application of the Health and Safety at Work Act to all sensor anomaly incidents, Type A (with a URN), Type B (without a URN) and the failed Type A (that have had their URN ‘Withdrawn’ or ‘Deleted’) as per the Appendix G form?

5. What is documented about any added training input which educates the above staff on the reason why your chief constable has added to the Appendix G the reason for the Civil Tort Legislation, namely The Occupiers Liability Act 1957, added as recent as April 2022? Your chief constable states, ‘Police officers will not normally enter the premises without the keyholder. However, this may be necessary on occasions due to suspicious circumstances. To ensure the safety of officers, the force must be pre-warned of site risks, therefore you are required to state any site hazards in accordance with the Occupiers Liability Act 1957.’

6. What is documented where your constabulary ever disagrees with any part of the policy and asked for a policy amendment?

7. What documentation is there on any local procedure that your constabulary applies to drive forward the further applications for URNs by those businesses and dwellings that wish to protect their premises by a police attendance? This drive towards 100% of premises applying for URNs would increase the Health and Safety features of the policy by alarms of a minimum standard and requirements for premise staff to be trained in order to reduce false activations, with a maximum number of false applications, at which the police will act to ban further calls by removal of the URN and a ban on the call from the Alarm Receiving Centre. (These points are related to points 3 and 4 above.”

Decision

I have today decided to disclose some of the requested information. Some data has been withheld as it is exempt from disclosure and therefore this response serves as a Refusal Notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) by virtue of the following exemptions:

Section 31(1)(a)(b) – Law Enforcement

Reason for decision

Section 31(1)(a)- Law Enforcement - Providing the names of specific companies trying to circumvent the MPS alarms procedure would be likely to, if released, make the buildings / sites these companies protect more vulnerable to those persons intent on gaining authorised access to them. This is because it may provide an indication that police response to those areas would potentially be slower. Therefore, as this could negatively impact upon our ability to prevent and detect crime, and more specifically, apprehend those responsible, Section 31 is engaged.

The process in place with regards to these alarms and the MPS response has been in place for several years. Not only does it reduce burden on the call handlers responding to 999 calls, thus ensuring the appropriate resources are where they need to be and quickly, it also ensures people cannot misuse the system to avoid being banned for engaging in poor practice with regards to their systems management.

However, disclosing the names of these companies would potentially leave them vulnerable to attacks on the premises they provide security for. If it was believed that police response to a specific building or site covered by one of these companies would be delayed because of this issue and the process, then it may become more of a target for unauthorised access. This would therefore be likely to lead to an increase in crime, and a reduction in our ability to detect it quickly and apprehend those responsible.

The public interest to provide information that could potentially highlight security vulnerabilities and make some areas and buildings more likely to be targeted.

Furthermore, the release of the bulletins arguably satisfies the public interest as the body of the text addresses the point in question. The release of these specific company names would do little to add to the context of the information.

Having considered your request, I accept that there is a public interest in transparency when any request is made for police information. The public interest favouring release must however be balanced against any associated risk and/or prejudice that would be caused through disclosure.

Having carefully considered this, I have found that the public release and publication of the names of these companies would be likely to reveal potential security vulnerabilities and mean that those with the necessary intent could specifically target the areas covered by these companies with the hope of a delayed police response. Given this, and the fact that the removal of this information does not detract from the quality of the records disclosed, I have found that the release of this information is not in the public interest at this time.

INFORMATION

Q1 - What is documented regarding the above staff being informed that your chief constable has banned the failed Type A systems that lose their Unique Reference Number (URN) from contacting your police communications centre on initial activation? These have therefore joined the Type B alarms in no longer having a URN, namely those that refuse to abide by the policy.

Q4 - What is documented about the training given to new communications centre staff on the application of the Health and Safety at Work Act to all sensor anomaly incidents, Type A (with a URN), Type B (without a URN) and the failed Type A (that have had their URN ‘Withdrawn’ or ‘Deleted’) as per the Appendix G form?

The Metropolitan Police Service’s work in this area is governed by the NPCC document – ‘Police Operational Advice and Security Industry Requirements for Response to Security Systems’. The relevant extract from that guidance can be found here:

3.1.1 For Type A security systems there are 2 levels of police response.
LEVEL 1 – Immediate
It should be noted that police response will normally be immediate but is ultimately determined by the nature of demand, priorities and resources which exist at the time a request for police response is received and, therefore, cannot be guaranteed.
LEVEL 3 – Withdrawn
No police attendance, keyholder response only.

This information is available to all staff. It is also available in the public domain:

NPCC Security Systems Policy

The procedure for dealing with alarms being passed on withdrawn URNs is included in the initial training provided to all call handlers but more importantly there are also prompts on the call handling system to provide a reminder.

In relation to this initial training, the following extract can be provided which covers both questions 1 and 4. It is taken from “MetCC First Contact Initial Course (FCIC) and Police Constable to First Contact (PCFC) content.”

“Unrecognised URN

There are rare occasions where CHS does not recognise a URN provided by the Alarm company. In those rare instances, you will need to exit the Alarm capture box and create a new demand manually.

There are many different individual scenarios and reasons where deployment has been necessary despite the invalid URN. If criminal activity is clearly on going then sending a unit is the correct/common sense thing to do. For example, Confirmed Visual or Confirmed Audible alarms where the ARC are able to furnish the operator with details which suggests a crime may be in progress.

However, for Invalid URN’s where no other information is apparent the Police accept these calls through First Contact but NO Police response is to be provided to them.

For calls with an invalid alarm URN, operators are to take full details of the alarm company calling, the clients name and address they are calling about and record the URN given on the CHS.

After this

Use Code – Alarm: Premises Audible Only (319)
Do not use Alarm: Central Station (317)
Grade as "R";
In Remarks put: "The URN quoted by the Alarm Company (enter that URN) is not known to CAD, Despatch to print incident to Security Systems Office (IP/SSO) for further enquiries to be made."
Pass the Demand through to CAD.
Once in CAD despatch will print to IP/SSO/URN UK

The Security Systems Office (SSO) will then take up the issue with the alarm company in question and resolve the matter to prevent this happening again. As such it is vitally important that where a URN is not recognised that the full details of the caller are recorded.

Reasons to print to Systems Security Office

Reasons to print to the SSO.

URN is not known.
Address given by Alarm Company doesn’t match our system. This can be a minor or major change.
Change of Occupant
Change of Sector (this may happen if the address was created incorrectly and forced through
Key holder is unable or unwilling to attend.
CODE WORD not provided to the Alarm company by person on premises.
Any other change to the Alarms database
If the incident is graded as R.

CHS operators must ask Despatch to Incident Print.

Calls with no URN

Guidance for non-central station alarm company calls where a third party alarm company, not registered with the SSO and without an alarm URN, simply calls 999 regarding an alarm activation.

It is important to note that these companies can be based anywhere in the UK and will often monitor multiple sites via remote audio/video i.e. CCTV.

When taking calls from these companies, the information they provide will need to be assessed by the FC Operator and despatch and not automatically graded as Immediate just because they state an alarm has gone off.

Common sense should be applied to these calls and the overriding criteria for deployment should be; Is someone in danger? Is an offence in progress? If it seems so, Police should always be deployed, no matter whom is making the call.

If you take a call from one of these alarm companies and the details are not clear cut, then our SOPS state that deployment should only be considered if there is some additional compelling reason to do so.

“To obtain Police response some additional information that an offence is in progress is required, or local circumstances indicate that such a response is necessary. This will usually require human intervention such as a member of the public, owner or agent viewing or visiting the premises”

If you have any issue with any alarm company or feel they should be spoken to or reviewed once the incident is dealt with, please tag the CAD with TI/SSO and add remarks as to what the issue was you encountered. We will then do our best to chase the company up and rectify the situation.

Please remember when taking calls from non-standard alarm companies, to take the name and contact number of the company in question as these may not be known to us.

These type of calls can come from MOP too –
Check if there is anything suspicious going on – if not explain the Met’s alarm policy re not attending if nothing suspicious and not registered with SSO.

If caller is complaining about noise of alarm – may become ASB call as well as alarms premises – may need to give EHO tel no.”

Q2 - What is documented about the above staff being educated in the requirement of a Keyholder to firstly attend all premises without a URN as per your published policy, namely the premises with the Type B and Failed Type A activations are to be treated the same? (See sections 3.1.1. Level Three – Withdrawn, and 3.6.4.)

As in question 1, the advice to staff is derived from the NPCC document. The relevant extract from that guidance has been provided below:

“3.6 POLICE ATTENDANCE - TYPE B SECURITY SYSTEMS (NON-COMPLIANT)

3.6.1 There is no guarantee of police response to Type B systems. The processing and response time for Type B systems will be significantly slower than that for Type A systems. The police response, if provided, will depend on the quality of the evidence received.

3.6.2 The electronic security industry has seen an increase in the availability of Type B alarms. These are being sold and bought with the expectation of prompt police attendance. Whilst not wishing to preclude the ability to provide a prompt response to crimes in action, observations as to the development of this technology has led to significant amounts of false calls and additional demands and higher expectations of police attendance than would be appropriate.

3.6.3 ARCs monitoring Type B systems should pass activations for keyholder response only.

3.6.4 Type B systems will require evidence from a person at the scene that a criminal offence is in progress which indicates that a police response is required. This will require the presence of a person(s) such as a member of public, owner or agent at, or in close proximity to, the location of the incident. The addition of electronic means or non-compliant systems to provide confirmation will not promote such systems to Type A to achieve police response. Type B system calls should be passed to the police directly from the person at the scene of the incident by dialling 101 or 999 as appropriate, not through a third party or compliant/non-compliant monitoring centre.”

In addition, two email bulletins have been sent out to remind MetCC staff of the procedures regarding Type B systems.

These first bulletin was sent on 31 August 2022 and can be found below:

AUTHORISED BY SUPERINTENDANT MURPHY – HEAD OF METCC OPERATIONS

Dear all,

Many of you have emailed to advise of various alarm companies that have not been following standard Met protocols when it comes to alarms and a Police response.

As you are aware the normal procedure for most commercial alarm companies that wish a Police response to an intruder/panic alarm is to apply to the Security Systems Office (SSO) for a Police Unique Reference Number (URN).

During this process the company in question pay an admin fee to the Met and supply full details of the address of the alarm and other details we require. The Met then provides the alarm company a URN that our systems recognise, so that once entered into CHS/CAD the address/response is automatically populated and a unit deployed with minimal delay.

As part of this agreement, we also hold the alarm companies to certain standards in relation to making sure the alarm is up to date and that they have key holder and other details and that their Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) is appropriately equipped by suitably vetted staff. These companies are also well aware that three false alarms means they will be banned from an automatic Police response.

Over the last year we have had several new alarm companies start up that have taken to avoiding this process for various reasons, primarily to reduce costs. Those companies take money from paying members of the public promising a Police response and instead of applying for a Police URN, they simply have their staff call 999 upon an alarm activation and provide details over the phone.

This process, whilst not prohibited or disallowed, increases call the volume through 999 as well as degrades a tried and tested system which we have been holding other alarm companies to for many years. Many of you have found these alarm companies call in with limited or uncertain details, often with no key holders and our statistics show that a very large proportion of these calls end up resulted as set off in error but as there is no record via ADMS, they will never be banned no matter how many times they call in a false report.

Please can I remind all staff that if an alarm company such as (REDACTED) to name but two, call through to 999 and advise they have a confirmed alarm and want a Police response but have no URN, unless they have some other information as to a crime taking place or a person/property in danger then we DO NOT automatically deploy to that request.

Where no URN is present the alarm company should be challenged as to why they believe a response is required. If we (the Met) have not verified their systems and processes a “confirmed alarm” could mean anything. Each call should be taken upon its merit but these alarm companies are the same as a third party members of public calling in an alarm they hear as they walk along the street. Unless something suspicious can be seen/heard or some other risk, we do not automatically deploy and if we do, we grade the call in line with a Thrive assessment not necessarily an Immediate. In addition, please remember to request a contact number for the key-holder that we can call back if required.

We have been in contact with (REDACTED) and all the alarm companies that are brought to our attention via the SSO tag list. They have been advised of our procedures and the correct way of processing alarms but when these companies are getting a response from us in any event, they are resistant to change and follow the process where we can hold them to account.

Please continue to use the CAD tag TI/SSO for alarm related issues.”

The second bulletin was sent on 13 January 202 and states:

AUTHORISED BY SUPERINTENDANT MURPHY – HEAD OF METCC OPERATIONS

Dear all,

This is a re circulation of the email sent on 31/AUG/22 as many of you have emailed to advise of various alarm companies, specifically (REDACTED), that have not been following standard Met protocols when it comes to alarms and a Police response.

Over the last two years we have had several new alarm companies start up that have taken to avoiding this process for various reasons, primarily to reduce costs. Those companies take money from paying members of the public promising a Police response and instead of applying for a Police URN, they simply have their staff call 999 upon an alarm activation and provide details over the phone. This process, whilst not prohibited or disallowed, increases call the volume through 999 as well as degrades a tried and tested system which we have been holding other alarm companies to for many years. Many of you have found these alarm companies call in with limited or uncertain details, often with no key holders and our statistics show that a very large proportion of these calls end up resulted as set off in error but as there is no record via ADMS, they will never be banned no matter how many times they call in a false report.

As such please can I remind all staff that if an alarm company such as (REDACTED) to name but two, call through to 999 and advise they have a confirmed alarm and want a Police response but have no URN, unless they have some other information as to a crime taking place or a person/property in danger then we DO NOT automatically deploy to that request.

Where no URN is present the alarm company should be challenged as to why they believe a response is required, If we (the Met) have not verified their systems and processes a “confirmed alarm” could mean anything. Each call should be taken upon its merit but these alarm companies are to be treated the same as we would a third party member of public calling in an alarm they hear as they walk along the street. Unless something suspicious can be seen/heard or some other risk, we do not automatically deploy and if we do, we grade the call in line with a Thrive assessment not necessarily an Immediate. In addition, please remember to request a contact number for the key-holder or a direct line for the company calling, that we can call back if required.

We continue to be in contact with (REDACTED) and all the alarm companies that are brought to our attention via the SSO tag list. The Security Systems Office continues to apply pressure to these companies to conform to the established processes but they are resistant to change and to follow a process where we can hold them to account. This is an ongoing negotiation and I will advise should there be any breakthrough.

Please continue to use the CAD tag TI/SSO for alarm related issues.”

In addition, the following is taken from MetCC First Contact Initial Course (FCIC) and Police Constable to First Contact (PCFC) content:

“The trainer will explain that the FC operator must always ask the alarm company whether they are calling the key holder. If they are, then this is recorded within the remarks.

If the alarm company advise that the key holder is unable or unwilling to attend, this must also be entered within the remarks. We will revisit this later in the session when we cover incidents that are passed to the SSO.

Reasons to print to Systems Security Office

Reasons to print to the SSO

URN is not known
Address given by Alarm Company doesn’t match our system. This can be a minor or major change.
Change of Occupant
Change of Sector (this may happen if the address was created incorrectly and forced through)
Key holder is unable or unwilling to attend
CODE WORD not provided to the Alarm company by person on premises
Any other change to the Alarms database
If the incident is graded as R.

CHS operators must ask Despatch to Incident Print.”

Q3 - If there is no documentation to 3) above, what documentation is there to explain to the alarm purchasing public that clearly states the Type B and Withdrawn Type A can be treated differently, namely the Type B alarms can always be considered for attendance but the failed Type A’s never can be, having been banned from contact by your chief constable?

There has been no recorded information located that answers this specific aspect of your request, and therefore there is no information held by the MPS.

However, please note, the National Police Chiefs Council are working with the compliant industry to look at promoting the use of compliant alarm systems, and to ensure that they are aware of the downfalls of non-compliant systems.

Q5 - What is documented about any added training input which educates the above staff on the reason why your chief constable has added to the Appendix G the reason for the Civil Tort Legislation, namely The Occupiers Liability Act 1957, added as recent as April 2022? Your chief constable states, ‘Police officers will not normally enter the premises without the keyholder. However, this may be necessary on occasions due to suspicious circumstances. To ensure the safety of officers, the force must be pre-warned of site risks, therefore you are required to state any site hazards in accordance with the Occupiers Liability Act 1957.’

There is no training specifically about this matter and therefore this information is not held by the MPS.

Q6 - What is documented where your constabulary ever disagrees with any part of the policy and asked for a policy amendment?

There is a provision to provide information on any individual police service variation to the NPCC document in appendix A. The MPS appendix A can today be provided to you. Please see below:

“APPENDIX A

VARIATIONS FORCE SERVICE STANDARD

“The National Police Chief’s Council Security Systems Requirements have been adopted by the Metropolitan Police Service.

It is available to view and download from the Secured by Design Website www.policesecuritysystems.com under Security Systems Policy.

The following variations permitted under the terms of this document apply in this police area.

1. Postal correspondence will not be processed. For that reason we cannot accept cheques.
a. All applications, variations status checks etc. should be emailed to [email protected]
b. New company applications, appeals, complaints etc. should be emailed to [email protected]

Invoices will be sent out for payment by BACS.

2. The Unique Reference Number (URN) remains the property of The Metropolitan Police Service and must be quoted in the subject field in all emails.

3. Telephone enquiries regarding specific URNs alarm activations will not be accepted.

4. Currently warning letters (paras 3.2.2 & 3.4.4) will not be sent out.

5. Only withdrawal letters will be sent. They will be emailed to the maintaining alarm company with a request to forward a copy to the customer.

6. The MPS charter response time for I graded (urgent) calls is 15 minutes.

7. Appeals will be considered under specific circumstances. Requests to disregard false calls caused by faulty equipment will not be considered.”

Please note, nothing in the current Appendix A affects how we respond to alarms. The variations are purely administrative.

Q7 - What documentation is there on any local procedure that your constabulary applies to drive forward the further applications for URNs by those businesses and dwellings that wish to protect their premises by a police attendance? This drive towards 100% of premises applying for URNs would increase the Health and Safety features of the policy by alarms of a minimum standard and requirements for premise staff to be trained in order to reduce false activations, with a maximum number of false applications, at which the police will act to ban further calls by removal of the URN and a ban on the call from the Alarm Receiving Centre. (These points are related to points 3 and 4 above.

This drive is dealt with nationally through the relevant NPCC group and security industry stakeholders. The MPS do not hold any relevant recorded information in relation to this. We would advise you to submit a separate request to the NPCC in this regard as they would be better placed to advise. Details of how to do so can be found in the following link:

NPCC - FOI and Subject Access Request

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The Application of the NPCC Security Systems Policy

Decision