Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 6
6
Accepted
Ensure new EE contract protects against excessive profits, mandates standards compliance, and enables future competition.
Conclusion
The Department risks creating a new monopoly supplier in EE, which could reduce long-term value for money. EE provides the main network infrastructure, but although it has made progress extending network coverage, it has not delivered on time, and still has work to complete. The Department has not introduced competition as quickly as it intended and, following previous extensions, it plans to award EE a new contract, again without competition. While the Department remains tied into a single network provider, emergency services cannot benefit from services provided by other operators. The Department claims it will be able to introduce competition later, because all its suppliers are following telecommunications standards, but incompatible assumptions made by different ESN suppliers about which telecommunication standards would be used was one of the issues that led to the 2018 reset. Recommendation 6: The Department should ensure that the new EE contract for ESN network infrastructure includes sufficient protection against EE making excessive profits and requires all infrastructure to fully comply with telecommunications standards and allows other network suppliers can be introduced in future if they are better value. 8 The Emergency Services Network 1 Progress delivering ESN
Government Response Summary
The government stated the new EE contract will be open book with a gain share mechanism to protect against excessive profits. It will allow reprocurement of ESN suppliers in two years and confirms the program adheres to international technical standards.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. non-binding heads of terms, and independent economists and commercial lawyers have critiqued these reviews to ensure to the greatest extent possible that a contract based upon these terms represents value for money. The new contract with telecommunications company EE will be awarded on an open book basis with a gain share mechanism built in. This will give us visibility over their costs and gross profit margin, with any savings made through, for example, greater efficiency, being shared between EE and the Home Office. The new contract will be structured to allow for the Home Office to reprocure all ESN suppliers around 2 years after programme completion. The entire programme is being delivered in line with international technical standards. This will enable commercial competition for the supply of all elements at regular intervals.