Fire services

1.40 Local fire services are being encouraged to form consortia, based on geographical proximity, to determine local radio communications needs and to procure acceptable solutions. In this way the costs of procurement, while not as low as for a single national procurement, will be lower than for 50 separate procurements. There will also be a degree of interoperability between neighbouring brigades in a consortium, since they will have obtained the same technology. Local decision making means that local needs will be met but there will not be a common standard across the whole country. This reflects the fact that fire appliances generally do not need to communicate beyond their own local authority boundaries. But there is also the possibility that systems and standards will continue to diverge and technological refreshes will come at different times and with different priority levels. This is very like the current situation for the police and is one of the issues that the national procurement of Airwave was designed to avoid.

1.41 In March 2001, a consortium comprising Devon, Cornwall, Avon, Dorset Gloucestershire Wiltshire and Somerset fire brigades requested tenders for the provision of wide area radio communications and mobile equipment. The scope of the procurement did not specify any particular communications platform or standard, so GSM, TETRA or other mobile communications technologies were all possible contenders. Although Airwave was a potential solution, the consortium has since entered preferred bidder negotiations with a supplier of an alternative technology. Other fire brigades, including Lancashire, have already taken or are likely to take Airwave.