26. From an early stage the Home Office had seen the Fire Service as a likely participant in the Airwave procurement. But the Fire Service considered that some features of Airwave, such as encryption, were not needed and were likely to add significantly to the cost. As a result, the Fire Service decided in 1996 in consultation with the Home Office that it would not be part of the initial procurement but should be included, with other emergency services, as a potential sharer of the new system.24
27. The Home Office and the Ambulance Service had discussed the project in the early 1990s, but at that stage the Ambulance Service had no requirement for a new radio system. There was now such a requirement and the Ambulance Service was planning a national procurement which would have interoperability with the other emergency services as part of the specification. We were told that from a government point of view, it was not necessarily a bad thing that the emergency services had independent views. Nevertheless, if all the emergency services had been able to join together at the beginning, it would have been possible to achieve greater economies of scale.25
28. In the Home Office's view there were still questions over whether individual police superintendents needed to talk directly to fire officers on the ground. In the case of emergencies there were well established procedures to bring the commands of the Fire Service and the Police Service together so that they could communicate and co-operate closely. A clear chain of command was required, as confusion could arise if officers were communicating directly with one another rather than through a central control point. Nevertheless there had been problems with the police communicating with the other emergency services.26
29. Communications between individual police and fire officers was not something the Fire Service had said they wanted, but it is desired in some cases by the Police Service, particularly for incidents at airports. Whether or not direct communications between individual officers were actually required, the Home Office told us that no estimate had been made of how much would be gained by the police and fire services in having such interoperability. But the Home Office accepted that the emergency services had to be able to communicate easily with each other when responding to major incidents. This requirement had been pointed up by the King's Cross fire in 1987, when communications had not worked well. Interoperability between the emergency services was not, therefore, a new issue, but the scale of recent terrorist incidents in New York and elsewhere had caused the Government to look again at the matter afresh. Airwave would for the first time enable PITO and the Home Office to provide a national service for the police.27
30. The C&AG's Report noted that the Department of Health is planning to procure a new national network for ambulance services which will include interoperability with the police and fire services as a key requirement. The Report also noted that local fire services were being encouraged to form consortia, based on geographical proximity, to determine local needs and a degree of interoperability between neighbouring fire brigades. Since the terrorist incidents of 11 September 2001, the Government had been reviewing the requirements on interoperability which underlie these planned procurements. In a note provided after the hearing, the Home Office told us that agreement had been reached between the police, fire and ambulance services on the need for enhanced radio communications interoperability in the light of the events of 11 September. A new specification reflecting this requirement was being prepared and would be included in the fire and ambulance service procurements. Furthermore, with Government support, management and funding, the planned fire service procurement would now go ahead on a national rather than regional basis. The current timetable envisaged award of a contract by 2004 and full implementation of the new system by the end of 2007.28
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25 Qq 3-6
27 Qq 108-110, 152-153, 187-188,260-263