Recommendation 25

Police were concerned that ESN may not prove any cheaper than commercial alternatives.83 We asked about operational benefits from access to data. The Department acknowledged that it no longer expected ESN to provide any productivity benefits.84 Police explained that almost all forces use mobile data via commercial tablets, laptops and smartphones, and the benefits from ESN enhancing these with priority access to data were not clear.85 The fire service said that its services were also using data and had already realised some of the benefits ESN was originally planned to bring. It also warned that, the longer these commercial services were used, the greater the risk that fire services would not agree to replace them with ESN.86 The ambulance service said that it had needed to redesign systems that were expected to connect to ESN to use commercial mobile connections instead, although it hoped ESN could be introduced in future.87