Select committee inquiry
Emergency services network inquiry
Closed
What the inquiry looked at
“The Emergency Services Network (ESN) is the programme to replace the existing, Airwave, communications system used by the police, fire and ambulance services in England, Scotland and Wales. The Home Office previously expected that emergency services would start using ESN in September 2017, allowing Airwave to be replaced in December 2019. In September 2018, the Home Office announced a ‘reset’ of the delayed programme based on the phased introduction of ESN services. The Public Accounts Committee has regularly questioned the Home Office about the progress of the ESN programme. This inquiry continues that scrutiny and will consider the extent to which the 2018 reset has addressed the problems in the programme.”
The committee's words, from the inquiry page on parliament.uk ↗.
What it found
In the committee's words, from the summary of 108th Report - Emergency Services Network: further progress review ↗
Effective, reliable mobile communications are vital for police, firefighters and ambulance crews to do their life-saving work. But despite repeated warnings from this Committee and others, the Home Office’s (the Department’s) programme to create the new Emergency Services Network (ESN) has been beset by problems. Delays to the delivery of the programme have continued and costs have escalated. ESN is now three years late and expected to cost the taxpayer at least £3.1 billion more than planned. The Department’s original approach was far too optimistic given the level of risk, and its governance arrangements were insufficient to deal with problems that emerged.
In 2018 the Department announced it was to ‘reset’ the programme, but we are not yet convinced that it has done enough to turn the programme around. The plan for delivering ESN is still not sufficiently robust and the Department does not yet have the skills to make it work. The programme faces substantial levels of technical and commercial risk, and failures to date have undermined the confidence of users that the programme will deliver a system that is fit for purpose and meets their needs. On current evidence it seems inevitable that there will be further delays and cost increases.
The department has put itself in a position where the status quo is costly and leaves little option but to progress with ESN. One company, Motorola, is involved in both the new and the old contract leading to perverse incentives and putting the department in a weak negotiating position. The committee has seen other examples where the lack of a market in certain technical or IT products and services puts the Government in a weak contractual position. This is the eighth occasion that we have examined the programme. We will continue to be concerned about the progress of this programme until the Department has a clear plan for delivery and can demonstrate that it has the skills and capacity to meet the substantial challenges ahead.
What the government said
No government response is linked to this report.
How the inquiry ran
Each dot is a dated item listed on this page, from the inquiry's opening on 21 February 2018 to 17 July 2019.
- Oral evidence 22 May 2019
- Report 17 Jul 2019
- Correspondence 2 letters
What it recommended 2 recommendations · 24 conclusions
1Despite extending the Emergency Services Network (ESN) by 3 years and increasing its budget by...
Recommended (the committee's words)
Despite extending the Emergency Services Network (ESN) by 3 years and increasing its budget by £3.1 billion, the Department has still not got a grip on whether it can deliver the programme. The Department announced it had ‘reset’ ESN in September 2018, but there are significant issues to resolve if it is to meet its extended deadline. Emergency services were meant to have started transitioning to ESN in September 2017, but nearly two years later the Department still does not yet have an integrated plan for how and when each emergency service will deploy ESN. Technology for some parts of ESN is still not yet ready, for example work to build a network to enable emergency service aircraft to use ESN has not yet started and coverage is not available everywhere it is needed, including on underground railways. The Department has extended the Airwave contract to December 2022 but is already describing this as a “not before” date rather than a realistic target for when ESN will be ready. Recommendation: The Department should set out, by October 2019 a detailed, achievable, integrated programme plan including a realistic date for turning off Airwave and the cost of any extension of Airwave that may be needed and update the Committee when this plan is ready.
2An unhealthy, ‘good news’ culture in the Department meant it failed to heed warning signs...
Concluded (the committee's words)
An unhealthy, ‘good news’ culture in the Department meant it failed to heed warning signs that the programme was undeliverable. Many of the issues with the Department’s original approach were foreseeable and should have been challenged earlier. For example, the Department could have taken a more incremental approach from the start and should have allowed more time to get planning permission for sites on which to build masts. We have been warning that ESN is a high-risk programme since 2016, but only now does the Department accept that it was too optimistic about how long it would take to build ESN. The Department admits that where problems had been identified, they were not escalated properly, which meant the Department missed opportunities to correct its approach earlier. For example, the Senior Responsible Owner for the programme was not made aware of an early report which had identified some of the issues and risks with the Department’s approach. It is positive that the current Accounting Officer quickly commissioned an independent review of the programme when he took up post in 2017, and that, as a result, action was taken to reset ESN, but it is concerning that such a report was necessary. Recommendation: The Department should write to the Committee by October 2019 setting out the steps that it has taken to: improve senior oversight of the programme; ensure assumptions are subject to appropriate challenge; and to make sure the findings of independent assurance reviews are widely shared and taken seriously.
3The Department’s mismanagement of the programme means the emergency services do not yet have confidence...
Concluded (the committee's words)
The Department’s mismanagement of the programme means the emergency services do not yet have confidence that ESN will provide a service that will meet their needs. Our previous examinations of the Department’s e-borders programme and the modernisation of the Disclosure and Barring Service have shown that a lack of understanding of user needs can lead to programme failure. The intended users of ESN have not yet seen enough evidence that it would be ready to replace Airwave by 6 Emergency Services Network: further progress review December 2022. The new incremental approach adopted by the Department could improve users’ confidence in the programme. But the initial test, the first version of ‘ESN Direct’, will only be used by about 120 users in immigration enforcement, a tiny fraction of the 300,000 potential ESN users. The Department continues to say that it will not force users to accept ESN until they all agree it is ‘as good’ as Airwave, but it has not defined what this means with sufficient clarity. It has also yet to confirm what happens if some users require expensive changes before they will accept ESN. Recommendation: The Department should, without delay, agree with users a set of specific and detailed criteria that will be used to determine when ESN is ready to replace Airwave, and who will ultimately decide when those criteria are met.
4We are not convinced that the Department has the plans or the skills needed to...
Concluded (the committee's words)
We are not convinced that the Department has the plans or the skills needed to integrate the different elements of ESN into a coherent service. The Department’s first attempt at integrating ESN was unsuccessful, with the ‘delivery partner’ KBR failing to provide planning and collaboration between the other contractors after its role was downgraded by the Department. The critical role of making all the different elements of ESN work seamlessly together has now passed to the Department, but it does not yet have sufficient skills to undertake this role. Its plans for testing ESN are not well developed and the its track record of coordinating this programme so far is poor. It failed to realise the implications of EE and Motorola making plans based on different versions of telecommunications standards. It similarly failed to ensure suppliers worked together in the same location at the start of the programme, which could have improved collaboration. The Department intends to contract a new delivery partner, but this has not yet happened. Recommendation: Before contracting with a new delivery partner, the Department should analyse the skills and tasks needed to integrate ESN, how any skills gaps will be filled, and how lessons from the failure of the KBR contract will be applied to the new delivery partner contract.
5Based on past failures to manage its contractors, we are concerned about the Department’s ability...
Concluded (the committee's words)
Based on past failures to manage its contractors, we are concerned about the Department’s ability to manage the significant commercial risks facing the programme, including those presented by Motorola’s position as supplier to ESN and owner of Airwave. The Department failed to ensure contractors delivered ESN to the timetable in the original contracts. It admits that the commercial structure for ESN is highly disaggregated and adds complexity to an already difficult task, and is trying to improve the contracts by changing them. But it signed the new Motorola contract 5 months late and the new EE contract was still not signed when we took evidence. The Airwave contract has been extended to end in December 2022, but a further negotiation will be needed to cover the additional delays which now seem inevitable given the Department’s admission that it could take longer to build and deploy ESN. It is vital that Airwave does not cease working before ESN is fully ready but extending Airwave again is likely to further increase the costs of the programme. Given its previous negotiation to extend Airwave achieved only a 5% discount, and given Motorola, which is a key supplier to ESN, has a monopoly position as Airwave’s owner, we are concerned that the Department has limited leverage to secure value for money in any future extension of Airwave contract. Emergency Services Network: further progress review 7 Recommendation: The Department should write to the Committee by October 2019 setting out how it will manage the risks presented by Motorola’s position and the possible need to extend Airwave until it can be replaced by ESN.
6Delays to the Department’s revised business case for ESN and the prospect of further increases...
Recommended (the committee's words)
Delays to the Department’s revised business case for ESN and the prospect of further increases in cost raises doubts over the value for money case for ESN. Although the forecast cost of ESN has increased by £3.1 billion, the Department still asserts that ESN will eventually be cheaper than Airwave. But it no longer expects this to happen until 2029, a delay of 7 years compared to the 2015 business case. Delivering ESN later than planned is also likely to create cost pressures for emergency services who may need to buy new Airwave devices while they wait for ESN to be ready. The Department’s forecast costs for the programme are not finalised as they are part of a business case which is not approved. The business case is now expected to be approved in early 2020, over a year late. Given it is likely that Airwave will need to be extended further than December 2022 it seems inevitable that the £9.3 billion cost of ESN will increase again. This will further delay the point at which ESN is cheaper than Airwave, weakening the argument for continuing with ESN. Recommendation: The Department should ensure it delivers a revised and approved business case, which both the emergency services and the other funders of ESN support, by the end of 2019 at the latest. The business case should include an appraisal of when continuing to spend money on ESN ceases to be value for money and should set out a ‘plan B’ for what would happen if that point was reached. 8 Emergency Services Network: further progress review 1 The 2018 ‘reset’ of the ESN programme
7When the current Accounting Officer joined the Department in April 2017, he found that the...
Concluded (the committee's words)
When the current Accounting Officer joined the Department in April 2017, he found that the programme’s timetable needed revising again despite the Department having recently announced 9 month delay.14 In July 2017 he commissioned an independent review that reported in October 2017 and found the programme did not have a complete integrated programme plan.15 The Department has now approved a new plan, but the National Audit Office found that the plan is not yet robust or sufficiently detailed to demonstrate that the Department understands the challenges faced by the programme. including how emergency services will implement ESN, or how the components of ESN will be integrated successfully. For example the Department’s plan assumes ESN will be rolled out in some areas before key parts of the system, such as upgraded control rooms, are expected to be ready.16 The Department told us that it would have an integrated deployment plan in place by August 2019.17 It was unable to confirm that December 2022 was a realistic target for turning off Airwave, and described it as a “not before date” rather than a firm deadline.18 Warning signs about the delivery of the programme
8The Department admitted that its programmes, and the people running them “tend to optimism”, which...
Concluded (the committee's words)
The Department admitted that its programmes, and the people running them “tend to optimism”, which can help get them through challenges but can also narrow the perspectives of those responsible for programme.19 We asked the Department the extent to which concerns about the programme were obvious and raised and discussed. The Department told us that while these concerns were obvious and were raised at a senior level, it could not confirm how widely they were discussed across the organisation.20 In 2016, the programme team commissioned a report into the problems facing ESN. But this was not shared with the programme’s Senior Responsible Owner, who told us he only learned of it when it was referenced in the independent review commissioned the following year. The Department was not able to explain why this had happened. The 2016 report had identified some of the problems in the programme, including a lack of clarity around integration. We asked, had the report been more widely discussed, whether the Department could have avoided problems with the programme. It told us that, had those now responsible been aware of the report, it was likely that they would have initiated the independent review of the programme at an earlier stage.21
9We asked the Department’s Accounting Officer what his view of ESN was when he took...
Concluded (the committee's words)
We asked the Department’s Accounting Officer what his view of ESN was when he took up his post in April 2017. He told us that it had quickly become apparent that the programme was under strain and he had been concerned that there was a risk additional time would be needed, beyond the 9 month delay that had already been reported.22 As well as commissioning an independent review in July 2017, he strengthened the leadership and governance of ESN so that the programme now reports to the Chief Digital, Data 13 Qq 74, 137; C&AG’s Report, para 12 14 Q 13 15 Q 23 16 Q 96; C&AG’s Report, para 16 17 Qq 113, 139 18 Qq 60,73 19 Q 45 20 Q 17 21 Qq 67–71 22 Qq 13–16 Emergency Services Network: further progress review 11 and Technology Officer.23 The independent review identified multiple issues with the programme, including the failure of the delivery partner contract with KBR, EE and Motorola assuming different versions of telecommunication standards, a disagreement on the responsibilities for systems integration and technical design, challenges locking down the detailed requirements for software, and late delivery of the projects that the Department controlled itself.24
10We were concerned that it took so long to surface the problems with the delivery...
Concluded (the committee's words)
We were concerned that it took so long to surface the problems with the delivery of ESN and realise that the timetable was over optimistic. We and the NAO had been warning that ESN was high risk since 2016.25 In September 2016, the NAO warned that the Department appeared to be under-rating the seriousness of the risks to delivering ESN.26 In our report in January 2017, we concluded that the programme was unlikely to meet its ambitious timetable and recommended that the Department reassess its timetable and milestones to ensure that all parties involved in delivering the programme agreed they were deliverable.27 We reiterated these concerns and our disappointment that the Department’s risk management and assurance arrangements had not picked these problems up earlier in our second report on ESN in April 2017 and recommended the Department review the risks to the programme as we thought it was too ambitious.28
11The Department now admits that it had believed the suppliers when they said they were...
Concluded (the committee's words)
The Department now admits that it had believed the suppliers when they said they were “confident” that they would be able to deliver ESN on time, and that the Department itself had under-estimated the difficulty in obtaining planning permission for the new sites. We were concerned that the Department had not anticipated these issues given that they were not a surprise to Committee Members based on experience within their constituencies.29 We also asked why, given the scale, complexity and level of risk of ESN, the Department had not adopted an incremental approach to rolling out the new technology from the start. The Department recognised that it had become overly focused on delivering everything at once, and that this was not the way to deliver such a complex programme.30 The Department admitted its original timetable was too optimistic, but some optimism remains, for example the programme contingency is only enough to cover a small further delay.31 Confidence of emergency services in the new approach
12Our previous examinations of major programmes within the Home Office have found that failing to...
Concluded (the committee's words)
Our previous examinations of major programmes within the Home Office have found that failing to understand or engage with the end users can pose serious risks. Our predecessor Committee’s report on the e-borders programme found that, while stakeholder engagement was a critical to the success of the programme, throughout the Department had underestimated the importance of securing their co-operation. The Department did not fully recognise the diversity of the industry users, and feedback from users had not 23 Qq 18- 22 24 Q 21; C&AG’s Report, para 6 25 Qq 40–44 26 Comptroller & Auditor General, Upgrading Emergency Services Communications: the Emergency Services Network, Session 2016–17, HC 627, 15 September 2016 27 Committee of Public Accounts, Upgrading emergency service communications, 35th Report of Session 2016–17, HC 770, 25 January 2017 28 Committee of Public Accounts, Upgrading emergency service communications – recall, 52nd report of Session 2016–17, HC 997, 21 April 2017 29 Qq 55, 127–129, 149 30 Qq 147–148 31 Q 42; C&AG’s Report, para 10 12 Emergency Services Network: further progress review been acted on. We recommended that the Department should ensure all stakeholders were consulted as programmes develop and that the issues they raise were considered carefully and responded to effectively.32 In our report on modernising the Disclosure and Barring Service we found that the Department launched the updated service without a sound idea of demand or whether customers would use it, and was only just starting to look at why it was not popular. It had launched the service without a pilot or properly engaging with users, which it subsequently admitted was a mistake as demand had been much lower than was predicted. We recommended that before making changes to services in future, the Department should undertake a proper and robust forecast of user needs and demand.33
13We were concerned that the delays to ESN had reduced users’ confidence in the programme...
Concluded (the committee's words)
We were concerned that the delays to ESN had reduced users’ confidence in the programme and asked the Department how it was addressing this.34 The Department told us that the new incremental approach to delivering ESN will give greater opportunity for emergency services to test ESN and gain confidence that it will meet their needs. But it recognised that, given the risks of using a new system in life or death situations, most may prefer to wait until later versions of ESN are available, rather than try out the earlier products.35 The first test will come with the launch of the ‘ESN Direct 1’ product later in 2019, which is expected to be used by 120 people in Immigration Enforcement.36 The Department told us that it hoped to expand the numbers using Direct 1 to around 1,000 people by November 2019, but recognised that this was still a small fraction of the 300,000 expected to eventually use ESN.37
14The Department did not start to undertake exercises with three police forces to understand their...
Concluded (the committee's words)
The Department did not start to undertake exercises with three police forces to understand their needs in rolling out ESN until July 2018. The Department told us that while it had been talking to users, delays in producing real products meant it had not yet been able to discuss how ESN fitted into the real-world environment, and that it was only now beginning to work through the details of how ESN would be rolled out.38 As a result of this some emergency services do not yet have confidence in the programme. We heard from the Police and Crime Commissioner of Bedfordshire, who told us that they had “seen nothing to give [us] assurance that [ESN] will be delivered by the end of 2022, as currently proposed”.39
15The Department continued to assert that it will not force emergency services to adopt ESN,...
Concluded (the committee's words)
The Department continued to assert that it will not force emergency services to adopt ESN, and that ESN will be as good as Airwave in all respects.40 We asked how this will be judged in the absence of an agreed, and locked down statement of what the ESN service will look like or how it will be used in practice.41 The Department told us that it knows the end point for the programme and had agreed the technical requirements that the programme must meet.42 But it admitted that the operating model—the way ESN will 32 Committee of Public Accounts, 27th report of Session 2015–16, e-Borders and successor programmes, HC 643, 4 March 2016, para 5 33 Committee of Public Accounts, Modernising the Disclosure and Barring Service, 42nd Report of Session 2017–19 , HC 695, 25 May 2018, para 5 34 Qq 28, 107 35 Qq 31,32, 148 36 Qq 28–32 37 Q 32; C&AG’s Report Figure 11 38 Qq 96, 101–103 39 Q 115; Written Evidence ESR0003, Bedfordshire Police, 5 June 2019 40 C&AG’s Report, para 15 41 Qq 150–167 42 Qq 154–160 Emergency Services Network: further progress review 13 be used in practice—had not yet been agreed. We were concerned that this created a risk that ESN might not be accepted by the emergency services despite meeting the technical requirements.43
16We heard from representatives of fire and police services, who told us that they were...
Concluded (the committee's words)
We heard from representatives of fire and police services, who told us that they were working on detailed acceptance criteria. The National Police ESN Coordinator told us that they had discussed and were agreeing an extensive set of exit criteria that need to be met before Airwave can be switched off. The National Fire Chiefs Council similarly told us that they had produced a comprehensive set of acceptance criteria which must be met in full for the fire service to consider ESN as fit for purpose.44 We asked what would happen if the Department considered ESN to be fully delivered but emergency services were not content to transition. The Department told us it will not leave users without communication, but could only say that there would be further discussions if emergency services were not happy.45 The Department was unable to explain in detail what would happen if some services were not convinced, or where the tipping point would be at which ESN is accepted by enough services to put pressure on others to accept it.46 43 Qq 160–169 44 Q 123; Written Evidence: ESR0001, National Police ESN Coordinator, 22 May 2019; ESR0002 National Fire Chiefs Council, 22 May 2019 45 Qq 120–122 46 Qq 173–177 14 Emergency Services Network: further progress review 2 Remaining risks for ESN Integration risks
17The Department appointed KBR to act as its ‘delivery partner’ in 2015, to oversee testing...
Concluded (the committee's words)
The Department appointed KBR to act as its ‘delivery partner’ in 2015, to oversee testing and support the integration of the different elements of ESN into a coherent system. The Department admitted that the contract was not successful and that it had downgraded the role of KBR and did not expect to continue to employ KBR much longer. Following our evidence session, it wrote to us to confirm that its contract with KBR had been terminated.47 KBR was contracted to deliver planning and collaboration between suppliers but the Department told us that while the contact had been useful to procure specialist resource, in some instances it had felt it necessary to appoint its own staff as those supplied by KBR did not have the experience or expertise the Department required.48
18The responsibility for integrating ESN has now passed wholly to the Department.
Concluded (the committee's words)
The responsibility for integrating ESN has now passed wholly to the Department. The Department recognised that this was not naturally the role of a Government department and that it needed to build its capability to take on the role.49 It told us that it was strengthening the programme team to increase its ability to undertake the integration, and that it was in the process of procuring a new delivery partner to ensure it has the system integration skills it needs.50
19The Department recognised that several of the early problems faced by the programme could have...
Concluded (the committee's words)
The Department recognised that several of the early problems faced by the programme could have been avoided with better integration and coordination between the different suppliers, for example, managing the impact of different versions of telecommunications standards being assumed by EE and Motorola. While the Department understood there was a difference, it admitted that it did not fully comprehend that this was a fundamental problem for the programme until software entered testing.51 We asked why the Department had not ensured suppliers worked in the same location at the start of the programme so that they could have talked to each other. We have seen such co-location bring benefits to other programmes such as efficiencies, savings and technological improvements. The Department admitted that, on reflection, it should have ensured suppliers were co-located and that while it thought its arrangements to work with suppliers would have been good enough, this had not been the case.52 Commercial risks
20As part of the reset, in June 2018 the Department realised that the existing ESN...
Concluded (the committee's words)
As part of the reset, in June 2018 the Department realised that the existing ESN contracts were not deliverable.53 The Department told us that it had tried to hold its suppliers to account but it admitted that it had needed to clarify the contract to make responsibilities clear.54 As part of the reset, since mid-2018 the Department has been renegotiating its contracts with EE and Motorola and has extended the Airwave contract. It has agreed temporary working arrangements with both EE and Motorola to enable 47 Q 93; Letter from Home Office to Meg Hillier, 4 June 2019 C&AG’s report, para 3, 14 48 Q 93; C&AG’s Report, para 6 49 Q 97 50 Q 98 51 Qq 46–50, 56 52 Qq 59–60 53 C&AG’s Report, para 3.3 54 Qq 36–37 Emergency Services Network: further progress review 15 work to continue due the renegotiation. The Department had intended to complete this by December 2018 but it only signed the Motorola contract in May 2019, 5 months late, and it had not signed the revised contract with EE at the time of our evidence session.55 The Department told us that the revised contracts would be clearer with a sharper division of responsibility. But it has not changed the complicated commercial structure of ESN, which it admitted is highly disaggregated.56
21The National Audit Office concluded the Department needed to manage Motorola’s contractual position carefully as...
Concluded (the committee's words)
The National Audit Office concluded the Department needed to manage Motorola’s contractual position carefully as it is both a main supplier to ESN and the owner of Airwave and may therefore benefit from delays to the programme. The Department will also need to manage any potential conflict of interest regarding Motorola’s role as one of the main suppliers to ESN as well as accreditor and potential vendor of control rooms and devices for the new system. Motorola will benefit from the successful development of ESN but also receives large revenues from the Airwave contract including £1.4 billion from extending Airwave to December 2022.57
22As part of its renegotiation with Motorola, the Department agreed a 5% discount in extending...
Concluded (the committee's words)
As part of its renegotiation with Motorola, the Department agreed a 5% discount in extending Airwave to December 2022 and a fixed price of £620 million per year to continue to run Airwave. We asked whether this cost would increase substantially if the Department needed to extend Airwave further. The Department told us that it had not tried to agree a longer contract because it did not want to be locked into Airwave.58 It said it had secured a commitment for Motorola not to put the future price of Airwave up “unreasonably”, but acknowledged that extending Airwave again would require another negotiation. The Department recognised that there was a risk of the cost of Airwave increasing again if a further extension is needed.59 For example, the Department told us that the TETRA technology used by Airwave is not likely to last into the 2030s without further capital investment.60 The case for continuing with ESN
23ESN is now expected to cost up to £9.3 billion, £3.1 billion more than was...
Concluded (the committee's words)
ESN is now expected to cost up to £9.3 billion, £3.1 billion more than was forecast in 2015. Of this, £1.4 billion is due to the cost of extending Airwave.61 The forecast costs of the programme are still uncertain as they are part of a business case which has not yet been approved. The Department expected to approve the new business case for ESN by December 2018, but it is not now expected until the end of 2019.62 We asked the Department whether the business case still stacked up and the programme would still provide value for money given the increases in cost. The Department told us that it still considered ESN to be cheaper than Airwave due to the savings expected after Airwave is turned off. It told us that, had it known at the beginning of the programme everything it knew now, the programme would still have represented value for money. It asserted that the only circumstances where it would make sense not to undertake ESN would be if it believed it was not technically possible to deliver it, which was not the case.63 55 C&AG’s Report, paras 3.4, 3.5, Q 37 56 Q 37; C&AG Report, para 8 57 C&AG’s Report, paras 10, 20 58 Qq 75–77 59 Qq 75–80 60 Qq 62, 79 61 Q 61; C&AG’s Report, para 10 62 Q 140, C&AG’s Report, para 10 63 Qq 62–63 16 Emergency Services Network: further progress review
24The Department estimated that running ESN will be about half the cost of running Airwave.64...
Concluded (the committee's words)
The Department estimated that running ESN will be about half the cost of running Airwave.64 It told us that it also continued to expect that ESN will deliver 5 minutes of time saved per officer per shift. It described this as a “conservative” estimate despite police not having approved it.65
25The Department now expects the point at which savings from ESN will outweigh the additional...
Concluded (the committee's words)
The Department now expects the point at which savings from ESN will outweigh the additional costs to happen by 2029, a delay of 7 years compared to the 2015 business case. But this assumes the cost of the programme is within the estimate in the draft business case, which only contained enough contingency to fund a delay to Airwave of less than two years.66 The Department was not able to tell us what level of cost increases would make it cheaper to pursue options other than ESN, such as pausing to allow the market to develop more of the needed technology rather than the Department being the first to develop it. It asserted that there were benefits to continuing with ESN despite the extra costs that will be incurred to be the first in the world. The Department also considered that there was no realistic alternative other than to continue with ESN because if it was stopped, a future Government would likely return to it later.67
26We were concerned that the increased cost of ESN was also likely to create local...
Concluded (the committee's words)
We were concerned that the increased cost of ESN was also likely to create local cost pressures for emergency services. Emergency service organisations told us that they have delayed upgrading their Airwave equipment in the hope ESN would be delivered will need to buy new Airwave devices while they wait for ESN.68 The Department accepted that delays were causing problems for emergency services who need to plan their expenditure and had relied on ESN being ready when drawing up these plans. It acknowledged this was “unfortunate” but was not able to offer any solution other than it was working with the National Police Chiefs Council to identify whether there was scope for emergency services to pool devices.69 64 Q 63; C&AG’s Report, para 8 65 Q 124 66 Q 60; C&AG’s Report, paras 10, 11 67 Qq 64, 65 68 Qq 117–118, Written Evidence ESR0003, Bedfordshire Police, 5 June 2019 69 Qq 18, 117–118 Emergency Services Network: further progress review 17
Evidence
Oral evidence sessions 1
- 22 May 2019No witnesses recordedparliament.uk ↗
Correspondence 2 letters
- 18 Jun 2019Letter from the Home Office to PCC Kathryn Holloway, Police and Crime Commissioner for Bedfordshire, following up on 22 May hearing on Emergency Services Network - dated 10 June 2019To committee
- 11 Jun 2019Letter from Sir Philip Rutnam KCB to Chair, regarding Emergency Services Network - dated 4 June 2019To committee