Investigate inter-control room information sharing

Status for fire and rescue services: Complete

The previous Government worked with the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) to implement Infrastructure and strategic solutions for control rooms to improve the sharing of risk critical information between fire control rooms and, in the longer term, between fire and police/ambulance control rooms. This allows the transfer of information between control rooms to be electronic instead of a control room operator having to manually contact the other service by telephone. The system is called “Multi Agency Information Transfer” (MAIT) and allows information to be transferred between control rooms much more quickly. This project is progressing well. The system is now operational in 3 fire control rooms serving 8 FRSs and continues to be rolled out across England with an implementation plan of 3 fire control rooms per month. According to plans, all English fire control rooms should be connected to MAIT by the end of 2024.

New talk groups have been introduced to allow fire services to share information live between fire control rooms to ensure the information provided by anyone handling a call, wherever in the country the call may be received, reflects the current state of the fire. All FRSs have now embedded these talk groups in their control rooms.

There are two Airwave Talkgroups (radio channels), a “Fire Broadcast Talkgroup” and a “JESIP (Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles) Multi Agency Talkgroup” to improve the sharing of information between fire, police and ambulance.

The Broadcast Talkgroup went live in England and Scotland in October 2020 and in Wales in December 2020. This means that if a fire and rescue service becomes overwhelmed with emergency calls, the affected service can now make an announcement on their control room Airwave Radio, and it will be received in every control room across the country simultaneously. The system has gone through extensive testing with successful results and is now in operational use in England Scotland and Wales under “Business as Usual”. The JESIP Talk group is now live in all Fire Control Rooms and the NFCC has released guidance to support its use.

Funding for two Fire Control Managers to be seconded to assist with development of the National Operational Guidance for Fire Control staff has been provided. This included updating the current Fire Survival Guidance and training.

Survival Guidance for all incident types, emergency call management people at risk and Fire Control Command guidance have now been published. Fire and rescue services are now able to integrate this guidance into their own policies and procedures.

Guidance for fire control staff for handling multiple emergency calls and multiple emergency incidents has been published recently.

In efforts to address this recommendation, all 43 fire and rescue services have embedded the policies and training to support fire control room personnel in the use of the Airwave Talk Groups.

The Home Office and NFCC have worked with BT to establish a more robust way of dealing with fire control rooms becoming overwhelmed with emergency calls resulting from large or protracted incidents.

A procedure known as “Operation Willow Beck” has been developed and tested and is currently operational in England, Scotland, and Wales.

This means that BT now has a predetermined redistribution plan of how to distribute overflow calls efficiently between other fire and rescue services during periods when a single control room has become overwhelmed with 999 calls due to a large, protracted incident or spate conditions.

The system was used several times during the July/August 2022 wildfires with successful outcomes.

In relation to the Airwave Talk Groups, all 43 services have embedded technical changes to the way information is shared between fire control rooms and between fire, police and ambulance services. This ensures that accurate and timely information will be available to any service that handles a call for a major incident not in their area, based on the decisions being made in real time on the incident ground. This is currently in use by all fire and rescue services.

Status for London Fire Brigade: Complete

With the establishment of the Broadcast Talkgroup, the NFCC has provided guidance on the Talkgroup.

The LFB has reported that recommendation 33.16 has been completed as all Control officers have received training on the Talkgroup’s protocol.  London Fire Brigade are also in the process of implementing Multi Agency Incident Transfer (MAIT) as part of the national rollout and it is hoped they should be live with the rest of England by the end of 2024.

Status for fire and rescue services: In progress

The Government is working in partnership with the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) to implement infrastructure and strategic solutions for control rooms to improve the sharing of risk critical information between fire control rooms, and in the longer term, between fire and police/ambulance control rooms. This will allow the transfer of information between control rooms to be electronic instead of a control room operator having to manually contact the other service by telephone. The system is called “Multi Agency Information Transfer” (MAIT) and will allow information to be transferred between control rooms much quicker. This project is progressing well, and a supplier has been identified and a contract has now been awarded. The Supplier is currently working with the Home Office on the MAIT implementation. The Home Office has also been working closely with the National Fire Chiefs Council to implement MAIT across all English Fire Control Rooms. Three early adopters have been identified, two of which are now connected to MAIT with the third to be connected shortly. It is hoped that the rest of the control rooms will be onboarded by the end of the year and then MAIT will be fully operational across all English Fire and Rescue Services.

New talk groups have been introduced to allow fire services to share information live between fire control rooms to ensure the information provided by anyone handling a call, wherever in the country the call may be received, reflects the current state of the fire. All FRSs have now embedded these talk groups in their call rooms.

There are two Airwave Talkgroups (radio channels), a “Fire Broadcast Talkgroup” and a “JESIP (Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles) Multi Agency Talkgroup” to improve the sharing of information between fire, police and ambulance.

The Broadcast Talkgroup went live in England and Scotland in October 2020 and in Wales in December 2020. This means that if a fire and rescue service becomes overwhelmed with emergency calls, the affected service can now make an announcement on their control room Airwave Radio, and it will be received in every control room across the county simultaneously. The system has gone through extensive testing with successful results and is now in operational use in England Scotland and Wales under “Business as Usual”. The JESIP Talk group is now live in all Fire Control Rooms and the NFCC has released guidance to support its use.

In conjunction with the NFCC, the Government has provided funding for two Fire Control Managers to be seconded to assist with development of the National Operational Guidance for Fire Control staff. This included updating the current Fire Survival Guidance and training.

Survival Guidance for all incident types, emergency call management people at risk and Fire Control Command guidance have now been published. Fire and rescue services are now able to integrate this guidance into their own policies and procedures.

Guidance for fire control staff for handling multiple emergency calls and multiple emergency incidents has been published recently.

In efforts to address this recommendation, all 43 fire and rescue services have embedded the policies and training to support fire control room personnel in the use of the Airwave Talk Groups.

The Home Office and NFCC have worked with BT to establish a more robust way of dealing with Fire Control Rooms becoming overwhelmed with emergency calls resulting from large or protracted incidents.

A procedure known as “Operation Willow Beck” has been developed and tested and is currently operational in England, Scotland, and Wales on a six-month pilot. This pilot has been extended to 12 months and is likely to be adopted to a BAU function in April 2023.

This means that BT now has a predetermined redistribution plan of how to distribute overflow calls efficiently between other fire and rescue services during periods when a single control room has become overwhelmed with 999 calls due to a large, protracted incident or spate conditions.

The system was used several times in anger during the July/August 22 wildfires with successful outcomes.

In August 2022, the NFCC surveyed all fire and rescue services (with the exception of the LFB) in England about their progress against recommendation 33.16.

For this recommendation, 100% of services (43 services) have, in relation to the Airwave Talk Groups, embedded technical changes to the way information is shared between fire control rooms and between fire, police and ambulance services. This will ensure that accurate and timely information will be available to any service that handles a call for a major incident not in their area, based on the decisions being made in real time on the incident ground. This is currently in use by all fire and rescue services.

The full completion of this recommendation is dependent on the rollout of MAIT. This should be achieved when all English FRSs go live with MAIT and it is estimated this will be by the Autumn of 2024.

Please refer to page 43 for further information on how the Government is seeking assurance on recommendations directed to fire and rescue services.

Status for London Fire Brigade: Complete

With the establishment of the Broadcast Talkgroup, the NFCC has provided guidance on the Talkgroup.

The LFB has reported that recommendation 33.16 has been completed as all Control officers have received training on the Talkgroup’s protocol. It is further reported that the Brigade’s Vision mobilising system is Multi Agency Incident Transfer (MAIT) enabled in preparation for the implementation of MAIT when it is rolled out nationally.

Please refer to page 41 for further information on how the Government is seeking assurance on recommendations directed to the LFB.