**I am now retired from the Police Service and later resigned as a police staff member. I would usually write about two main subjects, fell walking history and police history, especially within my county, discovering two officers who's deaths have been since added to the National Roll of Honour. To that end, both the brave and moral service the police provide to my county has always been at my heart. That said, if you have no police connection, or have no premise, business or dwelling that is protected with a police compliant alarm, or have a professional interest in ensuring the police provide the ethical service they state they do, then this will be of little interest to you. If you fall into any of those categories, then although this is a big read, it is an important one and goes to the very core of the moral stance, or lack of it, of the NPCC officers themselves, sadly across the country. If that group wish to make any observations on any perceived failings in my below comments, they are entitled to do so below, for the public to further scrutinise, indeed I would encourage anyone who has a comment, positive or negative, to document those in the 'comments' field, just keep it professional.**
***********************
National Police Chief’s Council
(NPCC) Security Systems Policy Failures.
The National Police Chief’s Council is a police body which is made up
of those most senior ranks of officers of Chief Constables (C. C.’s), and their
Deputy and Assistant C. C.’s. They have been selected through a rigorous process
designed to identify their natural skills in Leadership, Effective Management,
and their Strategic Planning abilities on a county and national level. That
planning they accomplish by the formulation of policies, protocols and
guidelines, all encompassed within identified Policing Ethics and Principles. These
are derived from a Code of Ethics devised by the National College of Policing
in 2014 and published by each constabulary, to give the public the confidence
that their particular constabulary will apply those ethics to everything it
does in order to serve them justly. Those 9 principles are:
Accountability, Honesty, Openness, Fairness, Integrity, Objectivity,
Leadership, Respect, and Selflessness.
These sound ethics go on to inform Chief Officers at section 1.4.3
that they will:
•
‘show by personal example how the principles
and standards in this Code apply
• promote,
support and reinforce ethical behaviour at all times
• show
moral courage to do the right thing even in the face of criticism
• be
consistent in what you do and say
• promote
openness and transparency within policing and to the public
• promote
fairness and equality in the workplace
• create
and maintain an environment where you encourage challenge and feedback
•
be flexible and willing to change a course of
action if necessary.’
In the Preamble it states that the Code of Ethics have a statutory
basis for the Code in Section 39(a) of the Police Act 1996(as amended by
section 124 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014) and goes
on to state at 1.2.2:
‘As a code of practice, the legal status of the Code of Ethics:
a.
applies to the police forces maintained
for the police areas of England and Wales as defined in section 1 of the Police
Act 1996 (or as defined in any subsequent legislation)
b.
relates specifically to chief officers in
the discharge of their functions.’
Later at 1.3.2 it further states:
‘The expectation of the public and the professional body is that
every person working in policing will adopt the Code of Ethics’
To reiterate that desire for public confidence the College of Policing
go on to state:
‘We are committed to ensuring that the Code of Ethics is not simply
another piece of paper, poster or laminate, but is at the heart of every
policy, procedure, decision and action in policing.’
These are fine words, but can we test whether these ethics are at the
heart of every policy, procedure, decision, and action of policing? Let us measure
these ethics against the NPCC National Security Systems Policy.
-----------------------------
To give some context to the history, there was a dramatic increase in security system
activations as society went towards electronic protection systems of commercial and domestic
property from criminal activity. This was also added to by vehicle alarms. The
situation was becoming untenable as such systems were regularly attended as a
potential crime in progress. Invariably it was from a faulty sensor or failure
of staff through lack of training, or indifference in the knowledge that the
police would always attend. It was realised that a definitive policy was
required to give justifiable reasons why the police would NOT attend a specific
activation, thus correctly utilising valuable police resources to protect the
vulnerable of society and protect life itself. That policy came into existence
now over 24 years ago. By its implementation it is acknowledged to have been
responsible for a 90% reduction in police attendance to electronic sensor
activations and its use has been a positive benefit to the correct utilisation
of police resources; each attendance would have been at Immediate (blue light) Response,
with all the risks that entails to public safety and staff.
Recently, it appears to have been decided that every police incident
log should contain a further Risk Assessment which takes into account the
Threat, Harm, Risk, Investigative Opportunities, Vulnerability, Evaluation, and
Prevention and Intervention, this is the anagram THRIVE, or THRIVE+. I will
touch on these later on.
Here is a link to the policy statement etc.: https://www.policesecuritysystems.com/
The policy today has the stated
objectives:
·
‘To reduce the number of false calls passed
to the police
·
To provide an immediate police response to
compliant security systems
·
To provide guidance to the public and
security companies on police response to non-compliant systems
·
To place responsibility for compliance with
the policy on a UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service) accredited
certification body. Enforcement of standards is not a police function
·
To achieve a unified approach to the
administration process’.
Over 24 years the policy
document has constantly been updated, at the time of commencing this the
document was updated in October 2018, now a revised one is published in 2020
and is downloaded as a Word document in the top left corner of the section of
attached documents near the start.
The downloaded document states on
the first page: ‘These revised requirements have been produced and approved
by the NPCC Crime Operations Coordination Committee. Requirement produced by
the NPCC should be used by chief officers to shape police responses to ensure that the general public experience consistent
levels of service. …’
So, each constabulary should
provide a consistent level of service, in short it is a national policy and
having published the document, each constabulary should uniformly act within
its principles.
The participating or relevant
bodies are:
a) The
alarmed premise/owner of the protected building [their contract is with b)
below].
b) The
alarm installing company (if they take part in the police policy and fulfil the
stringent requirements, they become a ‘compliant installer’.)
c) The
Police, who will issue a Unique Reference Number, referred to as a URN, to the
compliant installer for that individual alarm.
d) A
compliant Alarm Receiving Centre, or ARC, who the URN is passed to by the
installer at b) for 24hr monitoring. Each ARC is supplied with a single priority
telephone number to contact the police with, to be used when the alarm is
activated.
Within the NPCC Requirements
document those alarms that are compliant are called Type A systems (see 3.1).
Those that have made an informed decision NOT to take part are called Type B
systems (see 3.6). The bulk of activations are the Intruder alarms, then it is
the Hold Up alarms, then a very small number of CCTV systems.
If any such system has been
issued with a URN, then it is a Type A, alarm and gets an Immediate
police response. Those that declined to accept the police policy were classed
as Type B alarms and it is for the keyholder to attend the scene first (in the
2018 document this was section 3.6.2, now section 3.6.3). If they witness what
they believe to be criminal activity, then they are to contact the police who
would attend a report of a crime. There are set conditions on the Type A alarm,
namely it must be of a certain British and European Standard, fitted by a
compliant company, whose staff had all been disclosure checked, sold to
potential customers in a certain ethical manner, and if it had a certain
number of false activations in a rolling 12 months period, then it is placed in
a ‘Withdrawn’ status, and if the failure was not corrected it would
eventually be placed in a Deleted status.
Crucially the compliant ARC
cannot contact the police about the activation during this ‘Withdrawn’ period;
it has fallen to the same status as the Type B alarms – a keyholder must
attend, not the police. This is a crucial part of the policy as it ensures that
the premise owners conduct correct training of their staff to prevent false
activations and also any alarm sensor fault is immediately reported and
corrected, to prevent another similar failure, thus risking being ‘Withdrawn’.
These are stringent and onerous requirements to prevent such false activations,
for no premise owner wishes it or their staff to be vulnerable through no
police response.
By devising and applying this
policy the NPCC author, currently the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, working
with a police initiative company called ‘Secured By Design’ (who write the
policy for signing off by the author), ensure that police resources are
effectively managed. It is crucial to understand that it is a policy of Risk Management,
NOT Risk Avoidance; if it were the latter then in order to be fair to all, that
would entail attending every activation that was reported to the police. All
Chief Officers have agreed to this policy, published it on their website, and
issue URN’s; crucially none have objected to its basic structure or principles.
Although separate in their geographic nature, by strategically applying this
policy, the intention is to bring about a realisation in the public and
commercial businesses, many of a national nature, that irrespective where they
reside or conduct business, in order to gain a police response to an activation
they MUST have fitted a compliant Type A URN system, but that only works if all
Chief Constables act in unison. The alarm companies are partners in the scheme,
and many have taken that business risk to achieve the necessary compliance
status in order to gain that potential remuneration from customers who wish to
have fitted a URN alarm. The public have been given an informed choice
on whether to fit a Type A system that will generate a police response to a
sensor activation. Some may disagree, but since that information is published,
it is both fair and ethical for the police to uniformly apply this policy of Risk
Management. Those NPCC officers have fulfilled their function of managing their
limited resources in an effective and nationally strategic manner.
Do they?
Through a dispute with one police
force over its incorrect application I began to suspect that there was great
disparity on how this policy was being implemented nationally and decided to
apply to each constabulary in the country to check whether this policy was
being uniformly, fairly and therefor ethically applied. Firstly I would say
that one would think that after 24 years of being in existence, with constant
regional meetings, bringing about updates to its correct application, and/or highlighting
any individual failings, it could be expected by the public that it would by
now be robust and fully in accordance with the policing ethics, highlighted
earlier. The first indicator that something is wrong with this policy is that despite
the Requirements placed on the alarm customer, with all the possible
penalties, including being Withdrawn, leading to possible Deleted
status, the policy author applies no checks on constabularies to ensure they
are serving the public in the manner they have stated they will, namely not
attend Type B alarms where only the keyholder would attend in the first
instance (the policy says ‘a person at the scene’, which is invariably the
keyholder in attendance). One would have thought that with all these potential and
onerous penalties on the public that there would be at least a moral duty to
also ensure constabulary compliance to the policy.
The Information Commissioner’s
Office website outlines the original information to the public on the purpose
of the Act, namely:
• "Openness
is fundamental to the political health of a modern state. This White Paper
marks a watershed in the relationship between the government and people of the
United Kingdom."
• "Unnecessary
secrecy in government leads to arrogance in governance and defective
decision-making."
That Openness brings about
Accountability through lack of Secrecy; if it does not exist then that
Arrogance and Defective Decision Making prevails, and the watershed spoken of
by the ICO will never occur in relation to this policy. The NPCC have placed
those severe but necessary Requirements, with their accompanying punitive
measures (of Withdrawn/Deleted status) on the compliant alarm companies and
their customers; one would think they would recognise a duty in either law or
morality, to ensure they effectively receive that published service.
Before I give the individual
constabulary results of the Freedom Of Information (FOI) requests regarding
this policy’s application I would add that it has been a murderous process to
undertake. There is a requirement for all public bodies to respond within 20
working days to FOI requests. They can refuse to respond for a number of
reasons, one being that the information requested would take too long and
therefor cost too much to compile; that time limit is basically 18 hours; this
is section 12 of the FOI Act. This
information retrieval would be simple, if the NPCC applied those checks I
earlier spoke of, and they were consistent. These applications I undertook were
anything but simple and after 6 months is still an ongoing piece of work, but
now thankfully concluding. Virtually every constabulary used section 12 as a
reason for refusal to supply the statistics, despite me asking for only the
last 50 examples of application of the policy to Type B activations from
non-compliant Alarm Receiving Centres. If the NPCC, as part of any constabulary
participation had required each to collate such information, to: ‘…
ensure that the general public experience consistent levels of service.
…’ that they reassured the public of in the policy, then there would
no issue; but there certainly was and still is one. Through my previous
experience of police communications centre procedures and my knowledge of alarm
activation procedures, by appeals both to the constabulary, then to the ICO, I
slowly drew out some information that can now give a fairly clear national
picture of the policy’s application, albeit at present not a complete one. I
also stress that any inaccuracy through differing criteria constabularies have
supplied me, and similarly through any small batch numbers, is the sole fault
of the NPCC and not one of mine. Any Chief Officer who wishes to contest any
conclusion, can contact me and supply a more accurate batch of figures, if we
can agree the criteria, for I have certainly tried.
I will try and outline any
differing issues for the reader to be aware of, to judge for him/herself on any
meaning. Initially I asked for all Type B calls (they mainly come from
non-compliant ARC’s and also calls from people hearing an alarm on the street,
which would mean it had no URN, as no call was received from a compliant ARC). Following
repeated refusals, I changed to apply for those calls from Non-compliant ARC’s
only; it was no better, but I decided to remain with this criteria as if a
constabulary were getting that right, then the rest would likely slot into
place correctly AND it is these non-compliant ARC’s that are acting on behalf
of their customers who have declined that informed choice to come under the
umbrella of the NPCC Security Systems Policy.
*****************
The Individual Constabulary
Responses.
01 - Avon and Somerset
Constabulary – Over three months they received 8 calls and after THRIVE was
applied they attended all eight, a breach rate of
100%
02 - Bedfordshire Police – ‘THRIVE
is applied to Type B alarms however we DO NOT routinely send officers. There
would have to be aggravating factors involved to dispatch officers. (THRIVE +
identifies the key considerations for evaluating any given situation, these
being but not limited to, Threat, Harm, Risk, Investigation, Vulnerability,
Engagement and Prevention and Intervention)’ They go on to say that in three months
they attended no Type B alarms, a breach rate of 0%
03 - Cambridgeshire Constabulary
– They share an alarm function with Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire and state: ‘We
do not have calls into the FCR from non-compliant ARCs. Type B calls come from
members of the public / witnesses to alarm activations rather than from ARCs.
All such calls as assessed using THRIVE and dealt with appropriately based on
this assessment. To assist, Cambs FCR have checked the last 10 such calls,
these are classed as ‘Audible Alarm’. These were all subject to a THRIVE
assessment and none were attended.’ I have to assume this to mean that the
breach rate is 0%, although it is confusing as SOME calls have to be from
non-compliant ARC’s, but attendance at no Audible only ones suggest a breach rate of 0%.
04 - Cheshire Constabulary – As a
result of an appeal they then stated that they apply THRIVE to Type B alarms,
then went on to say that: ‘Cheshire Constabulary do not attend Type B’s
unless following the Thrive and NDA process has taken place, the call taker has
been given no evidence from a person at the scene that a criminal offence is in
progress which indicates that a police response is required. We do not attend if we just get a call from a
non-Complaint ARC stating that an activation has occurred.’ Although no
actual figure has been given, their method of applying the policy, even with
THRIVE, suggests a breach rate of 0%, but
that is based on their word and NOT figures supplied.
05 - City of London Police – They
failed to respond, but after a reminder they stated that they cannot supply
data but that they applied THRIVE to all incidents, including Type B
activations and attended all alarm calls, irrespective of Type A or B. I have
submitted an appeal to the ICO as no figures were returned, but their response
suggests a breach rate of 100%
06 - Cleveland Police – This was
one of my first requests and Cleveland stated that they had 143 calls which
included from non-compliant ARC’s over a 12-month period and they attended 49,
making a breach rate of 34%. These will be
both Audible only and Non-compliant ARC calls, the latter figure would likely
be worse, if stood on its own.
07 - Cumbria Constabulary – I
enquired over 3 separate 3 month periods and they stated: 55% breach in 2016,
29% in 2018(while I was there), 55% in 2019(I have redacted the reasons for this
wide variance but it is enough to say there is an explanation). If we take the
latter one that is a breach rate of 55%. This includes the ‘audible only’ alarms from members
of the public so breaches of non-compliant ARC’s could be expected to be higher.
08 -Derbyshire Constabulary – Following
an appeal Derbyshire confirm they apply THRIVE but are unable to supply any
hard data. They state that they are: ‘…. able to confirm that the
Constabulary conforms to the National Security System Policy unless, and
following the application of THRIVE, there are other circumstances that
indicate police attendance is required. This is unclear as it is THRIVE
that causes attendance and has to be accepted as a failure to reply, beyond
THRIVE being applied. (This I again put down to the NPCC’s failure to require
statistical data on the correct application of the policy).
09 - Devon and Cornwall Police –
They apply THRIVE and attendance is dependent on that assessment. Of 8 calls
from non-compliant ARC’s over that period of time, they attended all 8, making a breach rate of 100%. This effectively means that
their interpretation of THRIVE is it will always cause a response, even merely
from a sensor activation only.
10 - Dorset Police – Dorset work
in partnership with Devon and Cornwall, so once again, THRIVE has to be
accepted as being applied causing a breach rate of
100%.
11 - Durham Constabulary –
Following an appeal and an amended request they stated:
‘A review of all incidents opened with the code 331 returned 0
(zero) Non-URN Activations that were received from Non-Compliant Alarm
Receiving Centres. As per the NPCC Policy, we do not action any non-compliant
alarms. We only deal with compliant security companies.’ Although no calls seem to have been recorded
from Non-compliant Arc’s, it seems clear that Durham apply the policy correctly
and therefor have a breach rate of 0%.
12 - Dyfed-Powys Police – They
stated they attend Type B activations, based on the THRIVE assessment. Of 10
calls they attended eight of them, giving a breach
rate of 80%.
13 - Essex Police – This perhaps is
best explained by letting their reply explain best of all the Essex
Constabulary stance:
‘When the NPCC Response to
Security Systems Policy was revised in 2018 the then Head of the FCR accepted
the revised Policy and gave his full backing to the stronger advice in regard
to calls from uncertificated alarm receiving centres requesting a response to
Type B systems and should a Force Control Room Operator accept such a call and
allocate a response they are required to justify their action. Calls from
uncertificated non-compliant Alarm Receiving Centres attempting to pass
intruder or personal attack alarms, are THRIVED but are then routinely rejected
in accordance with the NPCC Policy.
https://www.npcc.police.uk/documents/crime/2018/Security%20Systems%20Policy%202018.pdf
In order to assist FCR
Operators we have flagged 59 telephone numbers known to be used by these
companies with a warning to FCR Operators to remind them of the need for a URN
before accepting the call and allocating a response. We seem to have identified
the majority so far and it has not been necessary to add any further numbers in
the last six months. A number of our operators when taking this robust stance
were met with various demands with claims that we had a duty to attend. These
incidents were in some cases followed up by the management of the facility
demanding an explanation. The position taken by Essex Police has been extremely
successful and non-compliant Alarm Receiving Centres appear to have
understood.’
They went on to say:
‘During this period Essex
Police registered 520 alarm calls and only find one where although the ARC was
actually a certificated ARC they monitor an increasing number of non-compliant
systems which obviously do not have URN’s, the call was rejected.’ Taking
this it is clear that there is a breach rate
of 0%. See my comments below in the Lancashire section.
14 - Gloucestershire Constabulary
– My failure, I omitted them from my FOI’s.
15 - Greater Manchester Police – This
is complicated by the inclusion of the airport, but they state:
‘Ordinarily a Type B Alarm
call would not be deployed to. However, such reports could come via 999, 101 or
Officer radio.
For the period 1st April to
30th June 2019 there was a total of 392 Type B Alarm incidents created. Of
these 176 (45%) were attended – all reported via 101 or Officer radio. 999
calls were not deployed to.
Of the last 50 jobs (08:55
23/06/2019 to 23:52 30/06/2019) 27 (54%) were attended. Of these 25 were at the
Airport & subsequently attended by Airport Officers & 2 were on
District and the reports were received via Officer radio so the Officer was
already at the scene.’
If we look at the last paragraph and
exclude the airport, the two incidents where officers were the reporting source
are understandable and excluded. It suggests that GMP in general follow the
policy, although the earlier paragraph confuses this matter, so I applied no
breach rate due to this.
16 - Gwent Police – Gwent refused
to give details on the basis of time and cost. The matter is under appeal to
the ICO. What response they gave stated: ‘Gwent Police apply NSSP and would
not respond to type B Activations unless the THRIVE assessment indicates there
is a potential Crime in Progress or person(s) at risk.’ It suggests that THRIVE may well alter the
attendance.
18 - Hampshire Constabulary –
They state that they DO NOT apply a further risk assessment of THRIVE. They are
unable to supply actual figures but go on to state: ‘I can confirm that
Hampshire Constabulary robustly follow the National Security System Policy and
have no examples of this policy being breached by our force.’ As best as
can be stated, this gives confidence that there is a
breach rate of 0%.
19 - Hertfordshire Constabulary –
They state that they apply THRIVE but cannot give statistics for Non-compliant
ARC’s. They state: ‘We do not have calls into the FCR from non-compliant
ARCs. Type B calls come from members of the public/witnesses to alarm
activations rather than from ARCs. All such calls as assessed using THRIVE and
dealt with appropriately based on this assessment. To assist Herts FCR have
checked the last 10 such calls, these are classed as ‘Audible Alarm’. These were
all subject to a THRIVE assessment and none were attended.’ This again is
confusing as calls MUST at times be received from Non-compliant ARC’s, but in
the absence of other information I have to accept this as a breach rate of 0%.
20 - Humberside Police – This was
one of the first requests and was based on Type B’s, so would be Non-compliant
ARC’s and Audible Only, from callers hearing an alarm activation. Over a period
of a year they had 340 Type B calls and attended 280 of them. This is a breach rate of 83%. As earlier stated, the
non-compliant ARC calls would most likely be higher.
21 - Kent Police – They refused
on the grounds of time and cost to supply this information and it is currently
under appeal to the ICO. **Note** They responded to the appeal, although I
found the figures to be overexplained and therefore confusing. Not wishing to
cause further work to the constabulary I decided to leave the matter, although
it is enough to say that THRIVE is applied to the Non-compliant calls.
22 - Lancashire Constabulary –
Lancashire were unable to supply statistics, but it is clear from the copy
letters they supply that they conduct a robust application of the policy by not
attending, with letters sent out when calls are received from these
Non-compliant ARC’s. They also respond in a similar manner to the alarmed premise,
informing them of the policy itself and how to gain a response. They go on to
state: ‘We have identified a number of alarm companies (over 50) who are
regular callers. We have the following message attached to those companies
telephone numbers which states the following:
*PLEASE NOTE THIS NUMBER IS
FOR - ………………………………. - AN UNCERTIFIED ALARM RECEIVING CENTRE THAT HAS CHOSEN TO
OPERATE OUTSIDE THE NPCC/LANCASHIRE ALARM REQUIREMENTS. IF THERE IS NO URN
QUOTED OR NO EXTENUATING CIRCS WE SHOULD NOT DEPLOY - EMAIL ALARMS ADMIN WITH
LOG*’ Like Essex I will later comment on this. I am satisfied
that Lancashire will have a breach of 0%. That
said, well done Lancashire THAT is how it should be done, and along with Essex,
is a shining torch to those that fail.
23 - Leicestershire Constabulary –
They state that they apply THRIVE but calls from non-compliant ARC’s would not
normally be attended, unless another factor increases the Risk Assessment. No
such calls were recorded for 2019 giving a breach
rate of 0%.
24 - Lincolnshire Police – Out of
15 calls from Non-compliant ARC’s, They attended 10 of them, thereby giving a breach rate of 67%. This is itself disappointing
and surprising as *********. (I have redacted my comment beyond there is a
clear link of association between the constabulary and ‘Secured by Design, who
write this policy for alter ‘signing off’ by the NPCC author.)
25 - Merseyside Police – The
request was sent on 4th September 2019. They refused all the
information I requested. I appealed and they then sent some of the easier
information, stating they applied a Risk Assessment to all calls to the control
room. With regards to attendance to Type B activations, they stated: ‘The
attendance (or not) of a Type B Alarm will be based on the information passed
by the caller at that time and enquiries made from the reporting person at the
scene that a criminal offence is in progress which indicates that a police
response is required.’ They again refused to supply further actual
attendance data based on section 12 of FOI Act. The matter was under appeal to
the ICO and after their intervention, on 31.03.20, nearly 7 months
after my request that should have taken one month only, I was finally supplied
with information that better explained the attendance/non-attendance to Type B
activations. Out of 64 they attended 59, making a
breach rate of 92%. What chance has an ordinary member of the public
got to ever obtain these statistics which are a terrible indictment on Policing
Principles, especially Accountability? They never have, and if they do, they
never can.
26 - Metropolitan Police Service
– All 999 calls go through a THRIVE process. Out of 50 calls they attended 28
as Immediate Response, and 7 as Significant Response. 56% or 70% breach of Policy.
As there are two levels of attendance let us take those Immediate Response, so
there is a breach rate of 56%.
27 - Norfolk Constabulary –
Although THRIVE is applied Norfolk attended no calls from Non-compliant ARC’s,
giving a breach rate of 0%. They work in
conjunction with Suffolk.
28 - North Wales Police – Although
THRIVE is applied, of 4 calls from non-compliant ARC’s none were attended, giving a breach rate of 0%. (I have previously
professionally met the Alarms Manager of North Wales and believe this to be
very accurate).
29 - North Yorkshire Police –
They apply THRIVE and out of 3 calls they attended all three, giving a breach rate of 100%.
30 - Northamptonshire Police – Refuse
to supply any information and under appeal to the constabulary.
31 - Northumbria Police - Out of
61 calls there were two breaches to policy, giving a
breach rate of around 3%. That is acceptable
where management structures can check and address individual staff failings
(through support, one to one discussions on ethics, and possible retraining),
as there will invariably be.
32 - Nottinghamshire Police –
They apply THRIVE and out of 53 Type B (Non-compliant ARC’s and Audible only)
incidents they attended 4, giving a breach rate of
8%. That is acceptable where management structures can address
individual staff failings, as stated at 31) above.
33 - South Wales Police – South
Wales confirm that they attend no alarm activations where there is no URN. A Breach rate of 0%.
34 - South Yorkshire Police – Again,
like Merseyside, I sent an FOI on 4th September 2019 and they
refused to supply the crucial statistics, quoting time/cost factors, applying
section 12 of the FOI Act. However, they confirmed that they did apply THRIVE. Following
an appeal they did supply some data, based on 10 calls. Crucially to the
question I asked on Type B calls from non-compliant ARC’s, there were three
calls from such, and all three were attended. There were two calls of CCTV, one
was attended. I was not satisfied with this as their Chief Constable was the
author of the policy and one would have expected him to have his ‘finger on the
pulse’ and know how his constabulary applied his own policy. An appeal was
submitted to the ICO and after an initially informal intervention by them, this
eventually led to a discussion with the FOI department, followed by a similar
one from the Temporary Superintendent of the Comms department. I then received
an email to show that of 22 incidents of Type B calls from non-compliant ARCs,
15 were attended; again, like Merseyside that took until late March 2020, and
hones in on the general public’s inability to ever obtain these figures to show
compliance to the policing principles. It was said that these non-compliant
activations were risk assessed (or THRIVE’d) and that extra assessment showed
justifiable reasons sitting outside the mere sensor activation, why they should
be attended, despite the policy saying it required a ‘person at the scene’ to
report it, usually the keyholder on attending. This gives a breach rate of
68%.
35 - Staffordshire Police – They
confirm that they apply THRIVE and if 12 calls received, they attended 10 of
them, giving a breach rate of 83%. Even
if the other calls are accepted, there is still a significant breach rate.
36 - Suffolk Constabulary – They
apply THRIVE and of 10 calls they attended 3, giving a breach rate of 30%.
37 - Surrey Police – They confirm
that they apply THRIVE BUT apply the policy and of 10 samples checked, none
were attended, giving a breach rate of 0%. They included Audible only calls,
but the constabulary stress that they adhere to the policy. This is a breach rate of 0% but
did not state a number for Non-compliant ARC calls.
38 - Sussex Police – After
initially failing to respond Sussex say that they apply THRIVE, but wen on to
say that they adhered to the NPCC policy. They further stated: ‘10 calls
regarding Type B systems including audible only systems, have been checked and
based on the information provided at the time of the call, officers were not
deployed to any these calls.’ After a phone call to their FOI who himself
had checked certain criteria I am satisfied that they follow the policy
regarding Audible only systems ANF calls from non-compliant ARC’s. This gives a breach rate of 0%.
39 - Thames Valley Police – They
apply a further Risk Assessment to Type B calls received and base attendance on
that information. They state they follow the policy but have no means of
supplying the information requested. This is unacceptable for where is the
accountability to the public? It is a failing of the NPCC at a national level
for that accountability should always be a key factor to any of its policies.
40 - Warwickshire Police – Work
in conjunction with West Mercia (See below)
41 - West Mercia Police – They
give details of 13 calls from Non-compliant ARC’s and attended 8 of them,
giving a breach rate of 62%.
42 - West Midlands Police – They
apply THRIVE and of 26 calls received they attended 22 of them, giving a breach rate of 84%.
43 - West Yorkshire Police – After
two failures to respond and a threat if action from the ICO they stated they
apply THRIVE and only if extenuating circumstances are present; ie., suspicious
circumstances, intelligence on the address/location. That said they then
state to attending non-compliant ARC calls: ‘In relation to 999 calls only,
between 1st April 2019 to 30th June 2019 a total of 21 Alarm calls from TypeB
alarm companies were recorded. A total of 17 of these calls were attended.’
This means virtually every incident has such circumstances to warrant
attention, giving a breach rate of 81%.
44 - Wiltshire Police – They
quote the policy and state that there were zero calls from non-compliant ARC’s.
Although that is a 0% breach, it seems difficult to believe that no calls were
from such ARC’s.
Police Service of Northern
Ireland (PSNI) – in the 3 months there were 16 Type B’s from non-compliant ARC’s
and they attended 15 – a breach rate of 94%
Police Scotland - after appeal.
Out of 51 Audible incidents, they attended 17 incidents, a breach of 33%. (They were unable to give figures
for pure non – compliant ARCs, would likely be a higher figure.)
********************
The first question to ask is: ‘Did
the NPCC achieve its 24-year-old goal of ensuring that the general public
experienced consistent levels of service? It is blatantly obvious that they did
not. To say that the above data is the best that they can achieve after over 24
years is a sad indictment on their leadership, management, and strategic
planning capabilities; it is an abject failure of their duty to the public. I
decided to question this further and sent an FOI request to the NPCC itself; in
it I asked:
‘In order to: 'shape police
responses to ensure the general public experience consistent levels of service'
that is a clear indicator to there being a level of service identified and
expected for each constabulary to ensure it achieves. Based on this document
and specifically the section I have highlighted, I would ask a number of
questions:
a) Is their such an identified
police response level of service to Type A activation reports?
b) Is their such an identified police response
level of service to Type B activation reports? (I am aware these can be from a
member of the public hearing an alarm, or a non-compliant Alarm Receiving
Centre.)
c) Specifically, what is that
level of service (identified by the NPCC) for Type A and Type B activations
that each constabulary should ensure it strives to achieve in order to show it
is complying with its own published policy (namely the national one)?
d) Are the Police Requirements
above, Requirements or Guidelines? (It uses both terms, which causes
confusion.)
e) Is this NPCC compiled
document (for the public's knowledge in making informed decisions), founded in
the Policing Ethics and Principles of: Honesty, Fairness, Openness, Integrity?
(I expect this to have been fully considered and documented.)
For a) and b) they steer me to
sections 3.1 and 3.6.2 of the (now older) policy, and for all other questions they state: ‘The
NPCC does not hold recorded information captured by your request.’ This
means that having required all constabularies to apply the policy consistently,
after 24 years they themselves have no recorded information what that
consistent level of service should be! To say that is bizarre is to put it
mildly. They similarly cannot say if it is Requirements or Guidelines, nor even
whether the document is founded in the Policing Principles! These are crucial
points as *******, one constabulary I checked with has used the fact that they
are ‘Guidelines only’ to justify their continued substantial breach, which they
state they will continue to do, through the application of THRIVE. I would use
the term ‘abuse of’. I decided to ask that failing constabulary the same
questions, and this was refused on the grounds of being ‘vexatious’, which is
basically making a request, for little or no other reason than the requestor
just can, and for no justifiable reason. After assuring them that it was an
issue of public interest, and it was my intention to inform the public, and
having considered the questions and reduced them to a simple one on that
national ‘consistent level of service’, and what that specifically meant
to them in non-attendance or attendance to Type B alarms, they ‘specifically’
informed me:
'To achieve a consistent level
of service ********* Constabulary use a risk-based decision-making model
“THRIVESC and the NDM”. This means that
every incident is risk assessed based on the information available. A decision on how to best deal with the
incident is then made. There is no
“target” based approach to how many incidents of a specific nature we attend.
The response to each incident will be based on risk assessments. There are
however built in risk assessments within certain policies that will dictate
police attendance automatically.'
Again, I don’t care if they do or
don’t apply this further Risk Assessment (THRIVE or now THRIVESC), so long as
they do it equally and fairly for the 2nd group on keyholder
attendance only, namely those Type A alarms who have been made ‘Inactive’ and
are therefore on that same attendance status. It is blatantly unfair to
them to do otherwise and happens BECAUSE THERE IS NO PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILTY.
Despite me pointing this out on a great number of occasions to *********, they
ignore the three questions later set and are therefore Secretive, not Open,
as they espouse in their Policing Principles. I have not asked other failing
constabularies, for I know the response will be just the same, a failure to be
Open and Accountable to the public they serve and are supposed to do so
honestly. The Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, the policy author, could of
course unequivocally now state, in the interests of clarity to the public and
alarms industry, what that specific consistent level should be. I
suspect however that this will remain forever unstated, for he fails, in his adherence
to his open policy, based on the figures his own constabulary supplied. It is a travesty of Justice and a failure to the public,
nationwide, not just South Yorkshire. As an example, according to that quoted
failing constabulary, that ‘consistent level’ is wherever THRIVE leads them,
and that (national) consistency, or inconsistency, is exposed by the failure of
all those constabularies that do not have the courage to apply the policy,
despite saying they do. I currently have this matter of ********* Constabulary failing
to answer the question set correctly under appeal with the Information
Commissioner and will update this matter when this is finalised.
If we return back to the Policing
Principles and those responsibilities of Chief Officers, there has been an
abject failure of the policy author and all those failing Chief Officers to the
promotion of Openness and Accountability. Once exposed by those statistics I
have tortuously obtained, both at a local and national level, the integrity of
the NPCC and those failing chief officers in their own constabulary areas is
dramatically called into question. The duties, or responsibilities, that the
College of Policing specifically placed on the individual Chief Officers,
bullet pointed above, have been ignored by the ones that have failed to ensure
their policy is applied. Consider those security system users that have
accepted the policy as fact, within the guidance the policy has given them, in
order to achieve a police response to a sensor activation. Through that
mis-information published by each failing constabulary, those users who have
had too many false activations and whose system is in a Withdrawn status,
their compliant ARC CANNOT now contact the police, so they get a worse service
as those who have declined to take part (Type B systems). Those Type B systems
are always being considered for attendance in the failed constabularies,
through the application of THRIVE. It becomes obscene the closer a failing constabulary
reaches a failure rate of 100%!
Those failing Chief Officers need
to ask three simple questions of themselves to decide on their stated high
ethics:
1) How
can my constabulary apply a second Risk Assessment of THRIVE on the Type B
alarms (who, despite having information to make an informed choice, never took
part in the policy), not disclose that we are doing so, yet maintain our
Openness, Honesty, Fairness, Integrity, and Accountability?
2) Having
applied this undisclosed Risk Assessment of THRIVE how can my constabulary
cause the % deviation away from not attending Type B alarms (again who never
took part in the policy) without telling the public about the scale of the
breach it causes; in a significant number either approaching or even reaching 100%),
yet maintain that we are acting with Openness, Honesty, Integrity and are
Accountable?
3) In
applying THRIVE how can my constabulary apply it to Type B alarms (who never
took part in the policy) who are supposed to be on a Keyholder attendance
only, when those Withdrawn Type A alarms who have dropped to the same
Keyholder Attendance only status, have been banned from contacting the
constabulary, and therefor they cannot be equally THRIVED? How can I justify my
assertion of Openness, Honesty and Fairness and state my constabulary is
displaying Integrity?
The questions are unanswerable as
the application of THRIVE causes clear and obvious severe breaches of Openness,
Honesty, Fairness, and Integrity, yet has been allowed to occur over 24 years
BECAUSE THERE IS NO ACCOUNTABILITY, WHICH IS CAUSED BY NO REQUIREMENT TO PUBLISH
FIGURES TO SHOW HOW EACH CONSTABULARY ADHERES TO THE POLICY! That lack of
Accountability results in the:
"Unnecessary secrecy in
government leads to arrogance in governance and defective decision-making.",
the ICO highlight on their
website; they do so with good reason. If I am permitted to once stray into
sarcasm I would say that any Chief Officer who needs advice on whether these
issues addressed in the 3 questions above cause breaches in the policing ethics,
I would advise them to attend the nearest playschool group and ask the first
two year old they come across for their opinion. These failing Chief Officers
require their staff to fully apply the policing ethics as they go about their
duties or functions as they represent their constabulary, yet these high
ranking officers do not apply those same standards to themselves, clearly now
seeing their own principles as obstacles, to be circumvented. It is hypocrisy
of the highest order, especially those who have been made aware of this breach
and still fail to act, in order to address their own breach of their stated
ethics; it is simply a deceit and the house of cards it is based upon falls
down, when exposed. With the exception of one, all can perhaps say that they
were unaware and have unwittingly migrated to this position; that one, over the
last 18 months say that they have given this considerable thought and are
satisfied that they can apply THRIVE, but have repeatedly refused to inform the
public, nor answer the above three simple questions. It is a refusal to openly
display that stated Accountability, it can be nothing else. I now attach a link
to a Government document on Accountability. Although it speaks of Government,
it is equally relevant to ANY public body that similarly is supposed to serve
the public.
The NPCC Security Systems Policy itself is one
of a Risk Assessment yet THRIVE is a further Risk Assessment on a policy where
Risk has already been managed. One is tempted to say that in effect, THRIVE seems
to supersede the policy, so why have a policy at all? Just apply THRIVE to
every call, and that is both ethical and fair. Again, THRIVE has been applied
only over the last couple of years and these failing constabularies have always
been attending these calls, irrespective of any THRIVE assessment; in short,
they just cannot live with their perceived implications caused by their
publication of their own policy. That said, the policy identifies those alarm
activations that do not justify attendance through an objective test, or tests.
The main one is the quality of the system, requiring a ‘sequential activation’
of a certain European Standard. This gets away from that instinct to attend
everything, and only a VERY small percentage are genuine activations caused by
criminal activity. These failing constabularies then apply THRIVE, which at
best is subjective, and returns back to attending on instinct, as it is an
activation and may just be a crime. It begs the obvious question: if
THRIVE is to be so widely applied across the constabularies, then it is only
Open to show that it is, by inserting it into the policy at section 3.6 AND
require its monitoring; that would fulfil the policing principles.
Let us THRIVE it then: As stated
above, only a VERY small percentage are crimes (and these are the robust URN
ones), so that draw of police resources and ‘blue light’ attendance, is NOT
justifiable, particularly when you take into account a constable’s primary
responsibility of protecting life. Could you account for such a breach of the
policy at an inquest following a fatal collision? At such high breach rates
these failing Chief Officers are effectively saying that they disagree with the
policy yet publish it and NEVER challenge it. By publishing they are saying
they agree with it, but then effectively ignore it. That could not stand the
forensic scrutiny of an inquest or criminal court, and communications centre
inspectors need to be absolutely clear on that vulnerability, for it is them
that authorise attendance, by a positive instruction or failure to address
consistent breaches which occur on their watch. They need an instruction from
their Chief Constable, who themselves must justify why they publish the policy,
then ignore it through THRIVE. I do not doubt that there may be times, and these
will or should be rare, where an assessment may be made that causes attendance,
BUT it should be from one outside the scope of the Security Systems
Policy. As an example, if a call were received of a Type B alarm activation and
shortly before it occurring a person was recently seen acting in a suspicious
manner in that area, then common sense would say to attend. What is actually
occurring is that no such factors are occurring to cause attendance. I don’t accept
South Yorkshire’s assurance that 15 of 22 incidents justified attendance for
justifiable reasons, after THRIVE was applied; that should show in the figures
of crimes found; ie., ‘15 attendances to Type B incidents, 15 crimes found to
have been committed’. Since every other constabulary has a miniscule crime
level at alarms, why is South Yorkshire’s so different in perceiving crimes are
occurring from mere non-compliant alarms? The police are attending for no other
factor than an alarm has sounded (see the 100% breaches), or because of the
value of the property/contents, or the time of night, etc. All those factors
were known to the premise owner when they decided not to apply for a URN alarm;
other similar premise owners protected their property by obtaining a police
policy compliant system, so the non-compliant premise owner should have too.
The first responsibility to protect property lies with the property owned
themselves, and they fail where they do not obtain a URN system. Incidentally,
these companies who choose a non-compliant system can easily be identified by a
walk down the High Street. Looking at premise alarms it is clear that all the (***redacted)
shop chains choose this non-compliant means of alarm system ‘protection’.
Similarly, (***three national chains redacted) also have non-compliant systems.
No sympathy can be felt for such companies as their profits are vast, yet they
choose these cheaper non-compliant options. Last year (**redacted) alone
published profits of nearly 83 million pounds in 2018, (**redacted) profits for
2019 were £341 million. The (**redacted)
companies are similarly in the 100’s of millions profit brackets. They can
hardly say they cannot afford compliant alarm systems. The term ‘you make your
bed, then lie in it’ comes to mind.
Getting back to this THRIVE, if
THRIVE is to be applied it should be similar to:
‘This alarm system is of an
unknown British and European Standard, sold and fitted by a non-compliant
company whose company and staff honesty and training are also unknown. Also, any
repeated false sensor activations cannot lead to the non-compliant alarm being
Withdrawn, as can result from compliant system activations. As such the Risk
Assessment has already been completed within the NPCC policy, published on the
constabulary website and the premise owner has made an informed choice not to
come within the scope of the policy discipline. This is not suitable for police
attendance. The caller has been advised to contact the keyholder in the first
instance and if they witness what they believe to be a crime, to then contact
the police.’
If however THRIVE were to be
applied to cause attendance, then IT HAS TO BE APPLIED TO BOTH THE TYPE
B AND THE WITHDRAWN TYPE A ALARMS. To apply it to the former, but not the
latter, is grossly unfair, both being on the same ‘Keyholder attending’
status. IF however, to be fair you apply
it to the failed Type A alarms as well as the Type B ones you have scuttled
your policy as there is no punitive measure for that failure, you have just
given them another number to ring the police on, and that is 999! Still, there
are enough failing Chief Constables that if they acted together could apply
pressure to change the policy. However, as stated above, the problem then is
that effectively you do not have a policy and no matter what the objections may
be given, I cannot see that being applied. It once again simply comes down to
this: There is a perfectly sound policy (in the principles and structure of its
writing) that has been there for over 24 years BUT lacks that crucial
Accountability. A significant number of constabularies (Essex and Lancashire
are the shining examples) correctly apply it, why then can’t they all? Again,
it is an issue primarily of Leadership, or the lack of it.
One of the greatest controversies
is that of non-compliant CCTV activations and in a quotation from the FOI I
submitted to the NPCC on this THRIVE application they stated that a senior
officer there had stated, where a person reported witnessing someone on CCTV
they would have difficulty in not responding. I understand that BUT if that is
the case then it should be removed from the policy. Once again, URN’s are
issued to CCTV alarms and they can be then made ‘Inactive’. To consider
attendance to the non-compliant ones, and invariably doing so, is grossly
unfair to any compliant systems that have been made Inactive, for they are on
the same attendance status, but are not considered for attendance like the
non-compliant ones. This point was used by ******** constabulary to justify the
whole of their abuse of attendance to ALL calls from non-compliant ARC’s,
resulting in a large breach, despite these controversial CCTV URNs accounting
for a miniscule number. (The breach is significantly higher than that quoted, for
it is masked by the ‘Audible Only’ calls received, which are usually not
attended).
Personally, I left my employment
as an Alarms Manager, due to the immoral position I found myself in and a
failure of senior officers/managers to recognise their failings, despite trying
to alter it for 10 months in employment, now over two years. In those two years
those three simple questions have been continually asked of that constabulary,
but they have never responded to them, for they cannot square the circle. In my
discussions with other Alarms managers/staff in my requests for information, a
number of others have expressed the same concerns. They of course have careers
to build, mortgages to pay, and families to care for; therefore, they cannot
raise their concerns sufficiently to address the intransigent attitude of their
senior managers and NPCC officers. As an example, take the position I have
encountered, whereby the senior communications centre senior officers were
intransigent, the legal team and Professional Standards Team displayed severe
failings in understanding a policy and more seriously, failing to understand
the application of simple Policing Principles. These are not difficult words,
Honesty, Fairness, Openness, Integrity, Accountability. I of course, needed
none of these career issues and am beyond my policing development and merely
looked to contribute further to the constabulary and community by doing a good
job of work and earn a small amount of remuneration for ‘pleasures’.
Unfortunately, I CAN read a policy and understand the principles of applying
it, despite perceived problems it may cause; ‘challenges’ is the usual NPCC
word.
When you holistically view this,
it is clear the policy is not fit for the purpose it is intended (through that
lack of public Accountability), despite those 24 years of ‘fine tuning’. All
these failing Chief Constables surely cannot be getting it so wrong after such
an extended period to understand the policy? It appears that they want to have
their cake and eat it, or put another way, have a policy to reduce demand on
calls for service yet consider attending all alarms that are passed via 999
from non-compliant ARC’s to their communication centres(which they invariably
do so). Clearly, they just cannot live with saying, ‘No’ to the non-compliant ARC
calls and use THRIVE to justify their failing. It is the job of the
non-compliant ARC caller to use emotive language and persuade the
communications centre call handler that they should send a response. They
will speak of the surety that this is a burglary, for one reason or another
and/or that the alarm is a sequential system. The call handler will be in a quandary,
in the knowledge that they will surely face criticism IF it is later found to
be a crime. They need the full support of effective and brave management to
state that the policy will be followed and to merely ask for a URN, nothing
else, and inform the non-compliant ARC caller of the policy (which they know
better than the police comms handler) and to send a keyholder; in short, hold
to the policy. This failure to effectively manage the policy leads to a justifiable
concern that trust cannot be placed in the NPCC author (perhaps the NPCC
themselves), nor ‘Secured By Design’, to alter the policy so that it can work
effectively in the correct interests of the public(through that Accountability),
which should always be the police goal. With ‘Secured By Design, I have passed
my evidenced concerns to them and they have merely chosen to ignore me,
despite, or perhaps because, I am the only person in those 24 years to
highlight this significant failing on their part. I have no confidence in their
ability to address this matter at best they are burying their head in the sand
and continue to do so. It is my belief
that this is something for the Policing Minister to be made aware of, and
address. How can he be asked for extra resources when those that the Chief
Officers already have are being wasted? If it is happening with this area of
policing, what other areas also need highlighting? The police compete against
other public bodies for those finite government funds with the Health Service
and Education Service both needy and worthy departments.
I would personally only be
satisfied if Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabularies and Fire & Rescue
Service (HMICFRS) conducted an inspection of this policy application and
reported on it, with an ability to then highlight the failing constabularies
and require improvements. In future, figures should be required of every
constabulary and those that passed scrutiny, with near zero policy failures and
management structures that challenged individual breaches by staff with
re-training and monitoring of those staff members, those constabularies could
be exempted for a period of say 3 or 5 years. Those that breached the policy by
a substantial amount should be addressed by requiring the Chief Constable to correct
those clear failings AND if they continued to misinform the public, they should
then have the ability to advertise that they apply the policy, to be withdrawn
from their organisation. Those somewhere between should again be required to
improve and be continually reassessed, until they achieved that near zero
failure tier.
For these failing chief officers’,
it appears that they do not apply their own high ethical standards to
themselves. It leaves them open to an allegation of hypocrisy, for none of
their stated high ethics they require of ALL their staff can be applied to their
NPCC National Security Systems Policy application. They urgently need to
redress this and state to their management team:
'Apply my Policing Ethics and
irrespective of any concerns, those ethics are my tenets of policing and are
NOT to be breached under ANY circumstances. Any issue of perceived conflict or
serious concern should be raised for a decision to be made by myself.'
They should recognise these
ethics as underpinning EVERYTHING their staff do in terms of
decision-making and policing actions they take. Chief Constables have a further
duty to three clear groups with regards to this policy:
1. The
public, from the (at best) inaccurate information that the constabulary pass to
them, meaning they are unable to make an 'informed choice'.
2. The
Communications Centre staff, who if they apply the C.C.’s published policy are
criticised when a burglary indeed has occurred, leading to an attitude of self-protection,
so mark logs to attend everything. (We have all felt the criticism of that
system, when scrutinised by senior officers the next morning, including each C.
C. as a young in-service PC).
3. The
Alarms staff who are given the role profile of applying and advising on the
policy but are then expected to do anything other than correctly and ethically
apply it, in those failing organisations. They make failing alarms Inactive
while they read the incident logs of attendance to a substantial number of
non-compliant alarms, particularly the commercial ones (in some cases ALL of
these 999 calls).
What right does any failing chief
constable have to bring Police Regulation proceedings against any officer for
any breach of the Policing Principles when they cannot keep to these
themselves? They instinctively know this as they will never inform the public of
this second Risk Assessment application and its effect on the policy the public
believe they have made that ‘informed choice’ on. The first weapon any
constable fights crime with is Honesty, for without that there is no
public confidence in his/her Office. That applies equally from the student
officer up to and including the Chief Constable.
On that issue of risk, the police
have managed risk; they have shut police stations the length and breadth of the
country and have understandably justified such closures on the basis of an
acceptable risk. They have also reduced Crime Scene Investigators from
attendance at lower level crimes through the night, getting police officers to
try and protect forensic evidence as best they can so that it can be inspected
in the morning, losing that continuity and possible evidence to weather or
other factors. This is based on the efficient use of the police budget in
providing excellent policing, but based on the budget they have available to
fulfil all the calls for service from all requirements of our society; I fully
support them in these difficult decisions on factors of service and risk. Where
the Compliant ARC alarm activation Immediate Response calls cause longer
attendance times they can say, ‘we just missed catching them’ and show that at
least they tried, but with an alarm activation that falls outside their policy
requirements they feel they cannot bring themselves to explain why they chose
not to attend, and so deploy to them also. Well done Essex and Lancashire,
who are the forefront of good practice in the ethical way they apply the
policy, and make it work correctly. If all followed these champions
in the policy application then that stated ‘consistent level of service’ would
have been achieved many years, if not decades ago. It still remains as a
terrible indictment on the NPCC’s ability to apply a national strategy to
achieve a stated goal. It should be South Yorkshire constabulary who is that
champion, but sadly languishes in this regard.
There should be either the
courage to follow ethically the policy principles, or courage to inform the
public of the 2nd Risk Assessment and its subsequent effect, but
there is neither.
Each failing Chief Constable has
to accept that they have 2 years of hard work to embed this procedure into the
consciousness of their public and those failing constabularies have not yet
begun that arduous, but necessary process. It is said at regional alarm manager
meetings that it cannot be understood why more companies fail to take up and
abide by the URN system. It really isn’t rocket science; where constabularies
fail, they make that ‘take up task’ more difficult to embed in EVERY
constabulary, as many are national companies and are invariably getting a
service to non-compliant systems.
(**Since writing this document,
the new ECHO (Electronic Call Handling Operations) should have been in place,
but due to the COVID 19 Pandemic, this has understandably been delayed. It is
designed to cut out the police control-room call handler, thus speeding up the
sending of a vital resource to a Compliant (URN) activation. The alarms
industry has invested a great deal of time and money into its development and
are under the false belief that it will remove the subjectivity still further; it
should, but it will not! Why? Because nothing prevents the call from a
non-compliant ARC being received and THRIVE, that undisclosed secondary risk
assessment (that Inactive URN’s cannot equally benefit from, despite also being
on Keyholder attendance only), will still be applied by those failing
constabularies, due to the lack of moral courage by those failing constabulary
NPCC officers.**)
I have a number of suggestions on
how to move this policy positively forward to but what is fundamentally missing
from it is that ‘…… consistent level of service…..’. The policy, after 24 years
(as the quote from the NPCC shows and I suspect the same would be from every
one of the failing constabularies), should actually state what that service
should be, ie., a zero or near zero breach, for only then does it hold to
the Policing Principles. This may seem too prescriptive but look what that
failure to provide that direction has resulted in; remember, 24 years!
To work in an Alarms Department
in these failing constabularies is to be handed nothing more than a poisoned
chalice and any alarms staff member who cannot work within that hypocrisy is
being driven towards being constructively dismissed, these failing Chief
Constables need to be VERY careful of that allegation.
May I take this opportunity to
remind ALL chief constables of the College of Policing direction to every one
of them and this is especially true of the policy author, the South Yorkshire
Chief Officer:
1.2 Statutory
basis of the Code
1.2.1 The College of Policing
has issued the Code of Ethics as a code of practice under section 39A of the
Police Act 1996 (as amended by section 124 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime
and Policing Act 2014).
1.2.2 As a code of practice,
the legal status of the Code of Ethics:
a). ........
b). relates specifically to
chief officers in the discharge of their functions.
Chief officers 1.4.3
As the head of your force or
organisation you will:
- show by personal example how the principles and standards in this Code apply.
- promote, support and reinforce ethical behaviour at all times.
- show moral courage to do the right thing even in the face of criticism.
- be consistent in what you do and say.
- promote openness and transparency within policing and to the public.
- promote fairness and equality in the workplace
- create and maintain an environment where you encourage challenge and feedback.
- be flexible and willing to change a course of action if necessary
This policy I regard as the
single greatest breach of public trust on the part of those officers who charge
their staff with upholding, through the application of their Policing Principles; namely the
National Police Chief’s Council themselves. Openness, Honesty, Fairness,
Integrity, Accountability, where are those qualities displayed by the
NPCC here? Measured against those principles, its application by those failing
chief constables is obscene to suggest they are applied, in reality, it is a
deceit and the house of cards collapses if the Accountability is
addressed; sadly I fear it never will be.
******************
For Compliant Alarm
Companies and/or their Customers
I can understand the desire of
any compliant alarm company being reluctant to make a complaint against their
own constabulary, concerned that it may put them in a bad light by that
service. This is something that each company must consider, otherwise this
abuse will continue, as it has already done for the last 24 years. I would
suggest the asking of a simple question on receipt of a ‘Warning’ or
‘Withdrawn’ letter, and that is:
'We have received a
'Warning/Withdrawn' letter from the constabulary concerning the Alarm URN
*****. If withdrawn(or warned it may be), and placed on the same attendance
status as those alarms that never took part in the NPCC Security Systems Policy
and therefore have no URN, can you confirm that this Withdrawn system will be
treated equally, namely neither will achieve any response?
If that is not the case, why are the two systems now on the same attendance
status, being treated differently in that one is considered for attendance (no
URN) and other is banned from contact (Inactive URN), when the policy states
that both equally require someone at the scene to report criminal activity?
We as a company, for ourselves
and on behalf of our customer, look forward to your early response'
It is a perfectly reasonable
question and if not answered, it can be a request submitted as a Freedom Of
Information request. If asked through the Alarms Administration who sent the
original letter, a request to forward the matter to the FOI department would
bring about a legal requirement to respond under the FOI Act. Such a request
would hone the minds of the senior managers (NPCC, whose policy this is) of the
constabulary and would be duty bound to answer it in a manner that displays
that Fairness, contained in their Policing Principles, that sadly they have not
to date fulfilled. I have attached my email address for any assistance you may
require.
Ray Greenhow.
**Footnote**. Since writing this
the COVID 19 pandemic struck the world it even put this abuse of public trust
in the police, in some perspective. That said, the lockdown has ended, and to
now leave this until the crisis ends would make these figures far less relevant
due to time factors alone. Here we have a large proportion of the police
service, on a national level, wasting vital resources on alarm activations they
have identified as not to be attended, yet they attend. They are now so
desperate for resources that they have taken the unheard-of step (certainly
since WWII) of asking for retired officers to volunteer to return to assist
them through this staffing crisis. Also to be considered by the police is the
aftermath that will follow this pandemic; that will be the worst recession we
will have known in our lifetime, with the police numbers likely to be further
reduced and more involvement in other roles as other services contract, and the
police ‘pick up’ those incidents which those services can’t cope with. Still constabularies
waste time, risk safety, and pour stress on stretched officers through a
failure by police managers to do just that, manage.
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