Recommendation 27

The Department has not yet decided who will be responsible for running ESN and has paused work planning the live service operations.91 The fire service said it had seen limited lack information about how this would work, for example, it was not clear whether Home Office would run ESN as happens with Airwave.92 We asked whether the prioritisation of ESN communications over the general public risked a reduced public service during an emergency. The Independent Assurance Panel told us that while prioritisation is not an ‘on/off’ switch, proper network management is needed to ensure the network functions appropriately.93 Avoiding another monopoly supplier