The launch last month of the new CFOA policy on false alarms marks a significant joint effort by the industry and the fire and rescue service to tackle two issues, says Ron Alalouff. The first is false alarms generated in premises; these are at best a nuisance and at worst lead to complacency among occupants, which could be fatal in a real fire.

The other issue is that of unwanted fire signals passed on to the fire and rescue service - unwanted because they commit limited resources to non-existent fires and potentially delay their deployment at real ones. The new policy has also been updated to take account of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order and aims to iron out some of drawbacks and inconsistencies of the previous version.

Notwithstanding the agreement, there are still issues over call filtering by alarm receiving centres and the lack of compulsion on the fire and rescue service to apply the policy consistently across the country. Some may even go as far as saying there has been a degree of fudge, but a more positive outlook would be that all sides have tried hard to agree on as much as possible at this stage, with the hope that there will be more convergence over time.

The policy is a good example of how the fire safety industry can work with the fire and rescue service to deliver better solutions with limited resources. It was launched at the Fire and Rescue 2008 conference and exhibition in Liverpool, which was a showcase for some of the excellent work and best practice in the fire and rescue service. But I was struck by the lack of more evidence that the wider fire safety industry was engaging with the fire and rescue service - and vice-versa. Perhaps it's early days yet, but I think that there will need to be more examples of this kind of engagement to really benefit the community at large.