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Ever since 1972, the UK has had in place a voluntary system of accreditation and inspection based on BS 4737. Compare this with the dilatory development of European standards being produced through the European Committee TC 79 (the Technical Committee for security systems that reports to CENELEC). TC 79 has managed to produce just two out of the 19 standards that were first started back in 1989.

There are more than one million monitored security systems in the UK, all installed and maintained to BS 4737 which, in spite of its longevity, has enabled the design and use of updated technology and systems as competence requirements moved with the times.

A review of work carried out by TC 79 in 2002 included the current EN 50131-1:1997 and its eventual replacement, prEN 50131. TC 79 decided it would recommend to CENELEC that a DOW should be assigned to prEN 50131 when it was published. In June last year, CENELEC chose to ignore that recommendation and assigned the DOW to EN 50131-1:1997.

The new DOW is said to be "a compromise" by CENELEC officials. I suppose that's one way of dealing with a problem that CENELEC themselves created by ignoring the advice of its own Technical Committee.

TC 79 officials were right in advising that the DOW should be on prEN 50131 when it's published. If CENELEC cannot live with that then either its officials or those working on TC 79 should resign and pass on the job to those that can and will be responsible.