Meeting documents

To consider Item 9

The Programme Manager advised Members that this paper provided a further update regarding the current status of the project to deliver the Emergency Services Network or ESN. The intervening period since the last report in March had seen the release of the second report from the National Audit Office into the delivery programme. The report highlighted that the management of the programme had led to delays, increased costs and poor value for taxpayers.  The predicted cost of the programme was now estimated at £9.3b, some £3.1b more than the original estimate.

The Programme Manager advised Members that the National Audit Office also stated that they believed that these revised predicted costs were uncertain and that it was unlikely that the ESN would be ready for use by 2022, which was the revised date for delivery. The Public Accounts Committee met on 22 May 2019 to discuss the report with Senior Civil Servant Sir Philip Rutnam. It was stated during these proceedings that the Full Business Case would not be signed off until the end of this year.

The Programme Manager advised Members that the Authority continued to engage with representatives from the Home Office technical team to move forward with the Direct Network Service Provider issue.  For Members who may not be aware, this link would provide the Authority with a direct link into the ESN rather than connecting via the Control Room network. This link would be used for managing the Authority’s own devices.   It now looked very likely that the Authority would be looking to install a separate network link in Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service (BFRS) to allow it to manage its own ESN devices and a proposed network diagram to deliver this, was being drawn up and further dialogue with the Home Office team would be necessary.

The Programme Manager advised that in the last report Members were advised of the decision made by the Home Office to withhold the final payment of Local Transition Resource funding which was originally aimed to be paid over three financial years.  This final payment amounted to £435k.  However, in the intervening period, the decision had been reversed and the final payment had since been received by BFRS who were the Treasurers for the South Central region.  Arrangements had now been made for the South Central services to draw down from this sum. The delivery of the project was in hiatus awaiting further information from the Central Home Office Team.

A Member asked how long the Authority could keep the existing system going if there were further delays and was advised that the existing Airwave system was fairly robust, the downside of the existing system was it tended to concentrate mainly on voice traffic and not data traffic, the new system will open up lots of possibilities to the Authority. Airwave recognised that there was going to be a delay and last year they embarked on a series of mini projects to update their existing equipment and update their existing network, which was still ongoing, so we can be fairly reassured for the next few years that the Airwave system would be robust enough to continue.

RESOLVED –

That the report be noted.