Agenda item

Ian Taylor attending

The Chair invited Ian Taylor, Senior User and Business Change Lead (Fire) NFCC and John Black, Programme Director Home Office, to introduce the update.

Ian and John gave members a brief overview of the ESMCP to date and then provided an update on developments since the previous report to FSMC in March 2020:

·       New Home Office appointments – in addition to John Black, the new Programme Director, appointed in August 2020, there was a new Senior Responsible Owner, Simon Parr, due to start in March 2021.

·       A more realistic Full Business Case, taking into account delays to the project, was being worked on and should be agreed through the various governance channels by the end of May 2021, at which point it would be presented to Government. A version would be available to share with FRAs by the end of March.

·       Unfortunately, there would not be an FSMC meeting prior to this but a joint NFCC/FSMC response was proposed. FRAs would also be consultees.

·       The NFCC remained confident that ESN was still the best way forward and achievable in spite of some significant challenges.

·       Adoption of early ESN products by several FRSs was proving valuable for the development of the programme and associated support packages. Full transition from Airwave to ESN was likely to take place in 2023 at the earliest.

·       In terms of costs, the NFCC was discussing the possibility of additional funding with the Home Office for transitional arrangements. FRAs were rightly concerned about future budgeting for ESN and in-life costs that were likely to be higher than for Airwave. It was important therefore that a model was developed to enable FRAs to do this and to remove as far as possible, any financial disincentives to uptake. Overall, however, the cost case for ESN remained positive.

·       Options for pump-priming an accelerated transition to ESN were being considered.

·       Concerns from FRAs about coverage of the new system and delays in implementation were acknowledged and Ian and John agreed that greater assurance needed to be provided to users and decision makers. This included providing credible timescales and extensive pre-launch testing.

·       The remaining LGA vacancy on the Fire Customer Group was flagged up.

In the subsequent discussion, members raised the following points:

·       How effective was collaboration with other blue light services on ESMCP? Ian said that there was excellent collaboration at both higher national and local levels. They had also been working with the Maritime & Coastguard Agency.

·       How could members be reassured through the Full Business Case, that the functionality of ESN would satisfy the requirements of FRSs? John said that an extensive exercise had been carried out over the last few months to determine what features ESN would need before going live. These would all be rigorously tested and various stress-testing scenarios played out involving FRSs. John reassured members that ESN would not be rolled out until all the testing had been successfully completed.

·       How would the Full Business Case be circulated for comment? This would be widely distributed by Ian to users and other stakeholders.

Decision:

·       FSMC noted the content of the report and agreed to draft a joint LGA/NFCC response on the Full Business Case to the Home Office.