21 Nov 2016

MPs raise concerns over ESN contingency plans

Witnesses from the Home Office, EE and Motorola Solutions were questioned by MPs earlier this month on the progress of the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme, and the deployment of the Emergency Services Network (ESN).

The ESN will replace the Airwave TETRA communication system that is currently being used by the UK’s emergency services.

The Public Accounts Committee session touched on all aspects of the project, with many lines of enquiry prompted by a recent Audit Office report. An overarching concern was the level of contingency should any aspect of the project not be ready by the planned December 2019 Airwave cut-off date.

Discussing the financial burden and notice period required should an extension be necessary, Vincent Kennedy, VP and general manager at Motorola Solutions UK, told the committee that a fixed price had been agreed on a “per region per month basis”.

“If needed we would keep the last regions going until they were on the EE network – it’s possible to at least sequence the dismantling in a way that you could leave a couple of regions going over a few months,” he said. “However, it would have to be [just] that order of magnitude.