What is an alarm receiving centre? What does it do?

An alarm receiving centre (ARC) is a facility which receives, processes and manages responses to alarms. It’s staffed 24/7 by trained responders.

ARCs monitor a variety of alarms. It could be your home or business intruder alarm (burglar alarm), smoke sensors, personal alarm, or automatic movement sensors on perimeter fences and CCTV cameras.

In this article, we explain what an alarm receiving centre is, and what it does. But let’s start with one of an ARC’s major plus points — a good night’s sleep.

A good night’s sleep

Let’s say an intruder alarm is triggered at your business premises in the early hours. It might be a genuine security breach — or, more likely, a false alarm. A passing fox or waving tree branch has set it off accidentally.

As the business owner or property manager, do you want to go out at 3am to investigate?

In short, ARCs help you sleep more easily. When professional responders receive an alarm signal, one of the first things they do is verify its cause and filter for false alarms. If the alarm is genuine, they’ll initiate and manage the correct response.

Why is this such a major benefit? Firstly, it saves untrained staff from putting themselves at risk by attending the premises. Secondly, ARCs reduce the serious problem with false alarms. There were 250,226 of them in the year to March 2025, with commercial premises responsible for 58% of false callouts.

Why are false alarms such a big deal?

The cost of false alarms

False alarms are eye-wateringly expensive. According to the Home Office, they cost UK businesses £1 billion per year in lost productivity and disruption.

Then there are the direct charges. Many UK fire authorities now issue a penalty fee for repeat false alarm callouts. Within a 12-month period, when false callouts exceed a certain number (between 3 and 10 depending on region) you’ll pay £350- £650 per incident.

Worse, when alarms keep crying `wolf’, the police and fire services stop responding to them altogether. Under these circumstances, they’ll only attend following a request from an accredited ARC which confirms the emergency is legitimate.

It’s another reason to consider an ARC. As you know, the boy who cried `wolf’ came to a sticky end. When the wolf was real, nobody believed him.

How do ARC staff discover what’s caused the alarm?

When ARC operatives receive an alarm signal, it’s assumed to be genuine unless proved otherwise within a short time period.

Day or night, verification begins immediately. Methods vary according to the type of alarm, the time of day, the protocols agreed by their client and the data they’ve been sent. The following are the most common:

During working hours, operatives may call a designated keyholder or staff member at the premises for on-the-ground verification.
Video verification is used when there’s footage from a video alarm or CCTV cameras linked to the alarm system.
Sequential confirmation is where different types of alarms are triggered in a specific timeframe or sequence — say, a perimeter alarm followed by a motion sensor activation.
If audio has been incorporated into the security system, audio verification allows operatives to listen in for sounds such as breaking glass, footsteps or raised voices.
AI and data analysis is increasingly used by ARCs to analyse patterns, spot unusual or suspicious activity and filter out common false alarm triggers.

What happens at an ARC when the alarm is verified as genuine?

Depending on the cause, the response can take a number of different forms — often determined by their client’s own preferences. For example, ARC staff can:

Contact a personal keyholder. Keys are held by a designated individual, a caretaker or employee who attends to deal with the cause of the alarm.
Contact a professional keyholder. Understandably, many business owners are reluctant to risk untrained staff running into an intruder, so they use a keyholding service. Trained professionals (often security officers) hold a set of keys and will attend to manage the situation.
Alert on-premise security staff, either an in-house team or professional SIA-accredited security officers hired as a standalone service.
Deploy a mobile patrol unit to attend the premises and deal with the situation before it escalates.

After this, the ARC continues to monitor the situation. They update their client on what’s happening, provide all necessary real-time support, then record and document the incident.

How ARCs deal with serious emergencies

From the list above, it may surprise you that responders don’t immediately call the emergency services. The fact is, a reputable ARC will only initiate a blue light response when there’s a good reason to do so.

It’s partly down to what’s known as a Unique Reference Number (URN) — an identification code provided to the ARC by the National Police Chiefs Council. ARC responders use the URN when they call the emergency services.

This is crucial, because when police and fire services get a request through a URN, they will act quickly. The callout comes from a trusted, fully authorised security company so the emergency services know it’s a genuine emergency, not a false alarm.

If an ARC repeatedly calls out emergency services unnecessarily, they risk losing their URN. The NPCC can revoke it. This is why you should always choose a fully accredited ARC which meets rigorous industry standards.

So, how will you know? Which accreditations should you look out for?

ARC accreditations

When you’re searching for a trusted alarm receiving centre, go for a company with the following accreditations:

NSI Gold is the highest level of certification, awarded by the National Security Inspectorate to only the highest quality ARCs.
BS EN 50518 is the European standard for alarm receiving centres. It proves that the centre generates a timely response to emergencies.
BS 9518 is the code of practice for the processing of alarm signals by an ARC.
SSAIB (Security Systems and Alarms Inspection Board) is another widely recognised certification body. It guarantees high standards and compliance with relevant British Standards.
BS 8484 is essential if you want an ARC to monitor lone worker devices. It sets strict requirements for the link between the device and the ARC.
ISO 27001 is important because it ensures data protection.
Cyber Essentials (Plus) is a government-backed standard for cyber security. It reduces the risk of online threats.

Or you can save time searching on Google and get in touch with us. You’re in safe hands. Classic Services Group’s ARC has all the necessary accreditations, including NSI Gold Category 1, awarded only to facilities which meet the highest possible standard.