Recommendation 12

We asked the emergency services if they could quantify how much delays to ESN had cost them. The ambulance service interacts with ESN through the Ambulance Radio Programme (ARP) on which it had spent £9.5 million.34 The fire service said it had spent £6 million preparing for transition, and £2 million on early versions of ESN which now had to be replaced.35 Police forces estimate that Airwave devices cost £125 million since 2018, and expect to spend another £25m by 2026. Forces also spent a further £5 million 23 Q 92 (27 March) 24 Q 29 (27 March) 25 C&AG’s Report, paras 19, 2.10 26 Q 66 (27 March) 27 Qq 13, 32 (26 April) 28 C&AG’s Report, para 1.10 29 Q 34 (27 March) 30 Q 35 (27 March) 31 ESN0001; Qq 22 (26 April) 32 Qq 16, 21 (26 April) 33 Q 40 (27 March); C&AG’s Report, para 16 34 Letter to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee from Chris Lucas, Senior User, NHS Ambulance Radio Programme, 9 May 2023 35 Letter to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee from Ben Norman, Deputy Chief Fire Officer, NFCC Strategic Lead for Operational Communications, 12 May 2023 The Emergency Services Network 11 on transition teams. Although police forces did not consider all of this spend to be wasted, the intended benefits had not been realised, and they considered there was a strong case for financial assistance with future costs.36