Lord Wasserman

999 performance data, including time taken to answer calls, is available for forces in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland on the police.uk website.

Data is available per force from November 2021 and new data is published monthly, one month in arrears. Members of the public can order the data to show average response times by each force, and the number and percentage of calls answered under 10 seconds, between 10 and (under) 60 seconds, and at 60 seconds or longer.

Unlike 999, there has been no national, consistent dataset for 101 performance data. Officials have worked closely with Policing to obtain agreement on definitions for the key metric of ‘Average Wait Time to Answer’ for 101 calls.

The Home Office will continue to work with Policing towards enabling consistent 101 performance data to be published.

The ESMCP 2021 Full Business Case estimated the total cost of providing critical emergency services communications between 2015/16 and 2036/37 was £11.3bn. This is the combined Airwave and legacy contracts and costs of the replacement ESN service. It assumed Airwave and legacy system costs of approximately £450m annually compared with ESN at around £250m. The annual running cost of ESN compared to Airwave and legacy costs is expected to save over £200m a year.

The Home Office fully understands the capabilities needed by the emergency services to transition safely to ESN, and is considering a number of options for off-network comms Airwave will only be shut down when the conditions for a safe and timely transition to ESN have been met.

The National Enabling Programme (NEP) rolled out the Microsoft 365 (M365) suites and the Identity and Access Management capability to 40 forces. In the last year, the capability saw significantly increased use which further facilitated police collaboration.

The Police Digital Service completed the roll out to the remaining forces in 2022-23 and is facilitating the growth of these services. The Home Office is working with the Police Digital Service and policing to identify opportunities to improve the business-as-usual service and enable greater exploitation through the M365 Productivity Project.

Since 2016, the Home Office has invested £103m in the police-led Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme to create greater choice for the public and support police in managing contact volume more efficiently. During this time, the DPC Programme has delivered the Single Online Home, a national web-based platform and digital police station where the public can report incidents, apply for licences, and provide and discover information about crime in their area. Single Online Home functionality is also available through the Police.uk mobile phone app.

At October 2024, 40 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales plus British Transport Police have been onboarded onto the platform and one further force is currently onboarding. Discussions are ongoing with the remaining two forces. DPC continues to support onboarded forces in making use of the wide range of Single Online Home services available. There are currently no plans to mandate all forces to make full use of the platform.

Since 2016, the Home Office has invested £103m in the police-led Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme to create greater choice for the public and support police in managing contact volume more efficiently. During this time, the DPC Programme has delivered the Single Online Home, a national web-based platform and digital police station where the public can report incidents, apply for licences, and provide and discover information about crime in their area. Single Online Home functionality is also available through the Police.uk mobile phone app.

At October 2024, 40 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales plus British Transport Police have been onboarded onto the platform and one further force is currently onboarding. Discussions are ongoing with the remaining two forces. DPC continues to support onboarded forces in making use of the wide range of Single Online Home services available. There are currently no plans to mandate all forces to make full use of the platform.

Since 2016, the Home Office has invested £103m in the police-led Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme to create greater choice for the public and support police in managing contact volume more efficiently. During this time, the DPC Programme has delivered the Single Online Home, a national web-based platform and digital police station where the public can report incidents, apply for licences, and provide and discover information about crime in their area. Single Online Home functionality is also available through the Police.uk mobile phone app.

At October 2024, 40 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales plus British Transport Police have been onboarded onto the platform and one further force is currently onboarding. Discussions are ongoing with the remaining two forces. DPC continues to support onboarded forces in making use of the wide range of Single Online Home services available. There are currently no plans to mandate all forces to make full use of the platform.

The Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS) is being delivered to enable the retirement of the legacy Police National Computer (PNC). The priority is to ensure that LEDS delivers full parity with all current PNC capabilities, using a modern technology foundation which enables the further evolution and modernisation of UK policing. The programme plan is to achieve this by March 2026 to align with the end of the current PNC support contract.

All relevant information regarding the progress and cost of this project will be published in the Accounting Officer Assessments, published routinely on the Home Office website.

Any relevant information concerning this procurement process will be met in due course via the government commercial disclosure portal Contracts Finder and in the Accounting Officer Assessments published routinely on the Home Office website.

With respect to the estimated shutdown date of Airwave, the current National Shutdown Target Date is 31 December 2029.