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Well, one thing is certain: there are a lot of people out there who are hot under the collar about DD243. The editor has received three full pages of letters and comments so far following my October column on the subject, and they have raised some good points.

It also pleased me greatly to receive a comment from Inspector Kevin Mann of ACPO, it points to the fact that the people up above do take notice of the plight of those below. I raised an answer for Kevin as I often do but it ran to a couple of pages so I have decided to include the answer as the bulk of my column this month.

First I need to state my position: I whole-heartedly support an ACPO policy, and the concept of confirmed technology. The industry is in desperate need of some form of guidelines to reduce the huge waste of police time due to false alarms. However, last October I was wearing my writer's hat and amplifying the views of the vast majority of the installers that have to live with the rules. At this point I also need to re-state that the views aired in this column are my own and are not those of my employers at the NSI.

At their wits end
Just about all the installers I speak to are confused and at their wits end as to how to comply without reducing the security of the protected premises. They see the whole DD243 thing as driven by the police and decidedly detrimental to their businesses. My object in writing the article was to highlight the sheer weight of frustration and anger felt by the installers on the problem, it was not to denigrate the standard or to cause offence.

Now, Kevin, to the points you raised: You suggested surprise that the inspectors could not design a system that complies with the example given and stated that you and your colleagues took five minutes to design two systems that did comply. I think you have missed my point. The knowledge and ability of the inspectors is beyond doubt, however it is not their job to design systems, only to inspect.

It is the installers who design the system and it is the installers that are refusing to use those two types of unsetting that you suggest. These are –
1. Unsetting via the ARC: If you consider the vast number of systems on response all wanting to set and unset at the same time every day it will take the ARCs until midnight to get round them all, and the cost in time and ARC man-hours will be astronomical. I think the sheer weight of numbers makes that system almost totally impractical and extremely costly. We should not underestimate the determination of the customer to get into their properties and start a day's trading. I reckon that by the end of the first week the customer will have got fed up of standing out in the cold waiting for the ARC to respond and start entering the building without waiting for the unset causing confirmed alarms and chaos to both the police and ARC alike.

2. Unsetting via the shunt-lock: I accept fully the fact that shunt lock unsetting has been in use in Germany for years and has been proven to be very false alarm-free. The problem here lies in other aspects. BS locks can be drilled and opened fairly quickly, (automatically unsetting the system). I know this because I was a locksmith for many years and made a living out of doing just that. DD243 does not specify the use of a BS lock so it becomes acceptable to fit a cheapo lock fitted with a switch to unset the system, and those can be opened using a piece of bent wire.

   Modern door problem
Keys can be lost or stolen and "found" by thieves, Keys can also be copied and passed on to others. Trying to control keys is a nightmare, even the so-called restricted keys can be bought if you know where to go. It's the installers and their customers who have disregarded the shunt lock because it may just reduce the security far too much.

There is also the aspect of the type of door fitted, the modern uPVC and aluminium doors do not lend themselves to having wires run across them, or to being drilled out for a conventional BS lock. Both of these activities may also result in the loss of the ten year guarantee on the door currently on offer from the manufacturers.

Finally, with regard to the coupling of DD243 and the ACPO policy: You are of course correct. You and I can both see that each is a totally different document, however, because the prime aim of DD243 is to reduce false alarms (and it has unerringly put its finger on unsetting as a prime problem), I had assumed (and so had the majority of installers) that ACPO was in fact the driving force behind DD243 ... particularly when you look at some of the unsetting clauses, which are designed to reduce false alarms but at the cost of the customer's security As far as the installers is concerned, they cannot get police response unless they are inspectorate recognised, and all inspectorates insist that the installer hold copies of and comply with BOTH documents, so in their eyes the two are joined at the hip and totally inseparable, hence my coupling of them in the article.

You may have by now read the next article where I suggested to a local shopkeeper an alternative approach, (creating a room outside the room using a wall safe or metal box to protect the keypad). The shopkeeper has now changed his insurance company, abandoned the idea of an alarm system altogether and had metal shutters fitted to the shop. In this case the alarm company has lost the business, and so has the insurance company that started the whole thing rolling.

I fully expect this scenario to be repeated many times across the country in the small one-roomed shops that fall foul of the rules ... that is, the ones whose alarm companies have told them the truth. There will now be an incentive to NOT tell the customer, install the system take the money and hope that the thieves never have to put the system to the test.

Once again it will be the smaller installer who loses out as more and more shopkeepers come to realise that an alarm system is a pointless expense

Customers being misled
We currently have a situation where the installer has to tell the customer "Yes I can put you a system in, but to get the required police response you have to comply with these rules etc" and go on to explain them and the costs involved. In some cases the installer even has to admit that entering the building will remove the confirmation and therefore the police response.

The question the installers are asking themselves is "Who in his right mind will be daft enough to pay out good money for a system that will NOT do what he has paid for it to do?"

In fact I am now hearing repeated verbal reports of alarm companies both big and small that are doing what we all have feared – just quoting and not telling the customer the full facts about confirmation and the removal of confirmation upon entry. Ironically, most of the information is coming from companies that have taken over a system and corrected the problems, so the "evidence" has been removed.

The real question we need to find out is WHY these companies are not giving out the right information … or are they, in fact, giving out the info in a way that the customer does not comprehend? The big national companies have separate specialist sales teams and many of these sales people do not have an engineering background so I can well understand them not understanding DD243 themselves let alone explain it to a complete novice like the average customer.

However, the mis-information reports I hear range equally between both large and very small companies so what excuse or reason have the small companies got? If it is the fact that they do not fully understand or "see" the reality of DD243 then we need to have more training courses run, perhaps even to write it into the next ACPO policy that training must be a requirement.

Lack of knowledge I can live with for the moment because it is only a matter of time before the inspectorates pick up on it and get the matter resolved.

The real problem is with companies that are deliberately withholding the full information and facts from the potential customer because if they tell the full truth the customer will not buy. These companies are going to be hard to find and it may well be the insurer that discovers the truth after a break-in ... which leads us to the next question.

Is the installer covered?
Where does both the installer and the customer stand with the insurance cover that each of them has taken out? Will the insurers pay out if the customer has a system that automatically removes its own police response? Will the installer then get sued? Will the installer's wrongful advice insurance cover him because he has failed to get the full meaning of the situation across to the customer who has "signed in good faith" because he fully trusts his alarm company – as he has done for many years.

Ironically, once again, it will be the small installer that loses out as more and more shopkeepers come to realise that an alarm system is a pointless expense.

In the meantime the streets are already starting to look like a war zone with shutters popping up all over, and this is BEFORE the new policy has had time to bite.

I can foresee the insurers going back to specifying shutters, bars and bolts; or possibly a private contractor to do the response, and at that point the police will have lost their last bit of credibility in the eyes of the pubic ... and that is something I never, ever want to see or hear, and neither does anyone else apart from the criminal.

Once again I have to state that I whole-heartedly support the police, the ACPO policy and DD243. It is just the unsetting that is the cause of the problems. So on behalf of all the frustrated installers, and the beleaguered customers, can I implore the powers that be to have another look at that small section of DD243 and perhaps to relax the rules a little or to find a way to give us the room to manoeuvre so that we can both comply AND give the customer the protection they are paying for.