Home Office still unable to confirm when ESN will be ready

The proposed new Emergency Services Network (ESN), first announced in 2015, was expected to have replaced the existing Airwave system for police, fire and ambulance services in England, Scotland and Wales, by 2020.

However the NAO said that despite the turn-off date for Airwave having already been extended twice, first to 2022 and then to 2026, the Home Office “does not now know when the ESN will be ready or what it will cost”.

The existing Airwave network, provided by Motorola Solutions, continues to offer 99.86 per cent availability.

The NAO said: “By March 2023, the Home Office will have spent just under £2 billion on ESN, and a further £2.9 billion to maintain Airwave.

“However, eight years after proposals for a new system to replace the outdated Airwave platform were unveiled and having agreed Motorola will no longer work on ESN after 2023, the Home Office does not currently know when ESN will be ready or how much it will cost.”

Speaking at the BAPCO annual conference on Tuesday (March 7), John Black, programme director for the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP), said he remained “confident” they can deliver the new network, although he admitted no date has been set for when.

Mr Black maintained that user safety was top of the agenda during the transition and there were “no immediate concerns over Airwave”.

“We will have a system equivalent to what we had with Motorola,” he said.

In 2016, the NAO reported the programme to be “high-risk”, with risks around the commercial approach; an ambitious timetable for delivering world-leading technology; and reliance on users accepting ESN was as good as Airwave.

Its second report published  in 2019 found the Home Office had not managed these risks leading to “poor value for money and delays”, adding that a reset, started in 2018, “had not worked”

In 2021 the Home Office wrote to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). It considered that Motorola’s Airwave profits were “excessive” and had concerns about “its incentives and ability to complete ESN within the time available”.

The CMA has provisionally estimated that, without a price control, Motorola could make “super-normal profits” of £1.1 billion between 2020 and 2026 from Airwave. The CMA expects to publish its final report and decision next month.

Motorola told the Home Office that it may not continue as a supplier when its contract ended in 2024. The NAO said this was to “remove the risk” that the CMA would force it to sell Airwave.

The Home Office and Motorola mutually agreed to terminate the contract early providing user services for the ESN as of December 19, 2022. The termination includes the supply of Kodiak MCX solution by Motorola Solutions UK.

The Home Office agreed to pay Motorola £45 million, which included £27 million to settle “outstanding milestones and disputes”, with the remainder for testing and to enable the Home Office to make sure that ESN continues works with Airwave.

“Motorola has been paid more than £300 million since 2015,” said the NAO. “The Home Office does not expect to use the critical software or systems that it has paid Motorola for, although it considers that it has obtained some value from this work which, for example, can be used for testing.”

After analysing its options, the Home Office will now award a new user services contract to replace Motorola.

“The Home Office recognises that although Motorola leaving the programme will address significant risks it also creates further delays and uncertainty,” said the NAO.

“Most notably, other suppliers’ work developing elements of ESN has been paused until the Home Office has replaced Motorola. This new contract will be the Home Office’s third attempt to introduce this technology, although the market for this technology has widened, and it has not yet been tested in real-world conditions to the scale necessary.”

Market engagement started last autumn and a procurement for a user services contract is expected to begin this spring.

A spokesperson for the ESN said the procurement of a new user services supplier will include delivery of the mission critical push-to-talk suite of applications and associated services that first responders will rely on when ESN is launched.

They said a contract notice is anticipated to be released in spring this year, followed by a thorough public procurement process, with contract award in 2024.

A new director of Delivery and Deployment, Niall Stokoe, also joined the ESMCP team in January after serving more than 30 years with the British Army, as Mr Black looks to build a team of skilled technology professionals around him to deliver the project.

The NAO said other elements of the programme have also been delayed with some not able to progress until the Home Office replaces Motorola, although network provider EE has nearly completed its work to establish the main network for ESN.

“More widely, the Home Office must still obtain planning permission for work on 42 of the 292 remote area sites and has paused considering how ESN will operate,” said the NAO.

“The Home Office plans to award EE a new contract, without competition, to avoid delaying the programme, which it intends to recompete when the new contract ends.

“Individual police forces will make their own decision about when to stop using Airwave and move to ESN.

“The Home Office told us it has now increased confidence in the programme’s leadership, who has improved user relationships which is critical to ESN being accepted.”

The NAO said the Home Office is now developing a new business case for approval in 2024, which will set out a revised timetable and costing, alongside a strategic case for continuing the programme.

This will take account of any charge control on Airwave that the CMA may propose.

A provisionally proposed charge control could lead to potential savings for the taxpayer of more than £150 million a year, said the NAO report.

It added: “The timetable for completion has been pushed back to 2026 at the earliest and is still uncertain. Maintaining Airwave into the 2030s could cost at least £250 million a year.

“Regardless of how ESN is taken forward, the Home Office will need to improve the programme’s management information so it can monitor progress and identify where action is required.”

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: “After eight years and almost £2 billion, it is extremely worrying that the Home Office does not now know when the ESN will be ready or what it will cost.

“Home Office is in the process of letting new contracts to put the programme on a sounder footing. It must now also put in place a realistic timetable and robust contractual and governance arrangements to address the significant risks this programme still faces and avoid any further waste of taxpayers’ money.”

A spokesperson for Motorola Solutions said it will continue to support ESN through transitional services until the end of 2023, and was “committed to the essential Airwave network, which is relied upon by the 300,000 emergency services personnel who protect communities across the UK every day”.