Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect to complete the procurement of a new supplier for mobile radio and data services for the emergency services; and when they estimate it will be possible to shut down the Airwave service.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect the Law Enforcement Data Service to be fully operational and the Police National Computer to be retired.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how much the Law Enforcement Data Service will have cost by the time it is fully operational.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to increase the number of interactive services provided to the public by the Single Online Home programme; and if so, whether they will publish those plans.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to require all police forces in England and Wales to make full use of the Single Online Home programme; and if so, whether they will publish those plans.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how much they have spent to date on the development and delivery of the Single Online Home programme.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how much has been spent since April 2015 on (1) establishing the Emergency Services Network, and (2) running the existing Airwave service.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the technology underlying the new Emergency Services Network will be capable of meeting all the operational requirements of the emergency services, including 'device-to-device' communications used when the wider network is unreachable, for example in rural locations.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the achievements of the National Enabling Programme are maintained and further developed by police forces, following the closure of that programme in April 2022.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what cost savings have resulted from police forces in England and Wales using the services of Blue Light Commercial since its establishment in June 2020.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

Since BlueLight Commercial’s foundation in the 2020/21 financial year they have worked to deliver financial benefits within policing in England and Wales of £287 million. This includes cashable savings, efficiency savings, cost avoidance and revenue generation activity.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to require all police forces in England and Wales to publish regularly up-to-date information on the time taken to answer (1) 999 calls, and (2) 101 calls.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government by what mechanism the cost of the Single Online Home system is recovered from the police forces which use it and on what basis may that cost vary.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

Single Online Home services for the public are kept under review and the Home Office funds the police-led Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme to deliver enhancements to the platform as determined by Policing’s requirements.

The Single Online Home is 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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to upgrade the Single Online Home system and when they expect these to be implemented.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

Single Online Home services for the public are kept under review and the Home Office funds the police-led Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme to deliver enhancements to the platform as determined by Policing’s requirements.

The Single Online Home is 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.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many members of the Board of Directors of the Police Digital Service have served on the board of directors of a public limited company; and whether they will list (1) these members, (2) the companies on the board of which they serve or have served, and (3) how long they have served on these boards.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

Tony Eastaugh CBE was appointed on 19 August 2024 as Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Police Digital Service (PDS). Any changes to these arrangements will be a matter for the PDS. More information about the leadership of the PDS is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/about-us/.

Appointments to PDS roles, the required skills of PDS employees and what professional memberships they should hold are a matter for the PDS.

The governance arrangements of the PDS Board, including the Articles of Association and Board Membership is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/governance/. Details of current and former directorships can be found on the on Companies House Website.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many specialist employees the Police Digital Service has who are (1) members of the British Computer Society or (2) Fellows of the British Computer Society.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

Tony Eastaugh CBE was appointed on 19 August 2024 as Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Police Digital Service (PDS). Any changes to these arrangements will be a matter for the PDS. More information about the leadership of the PDS is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/about-us/.

Appointments to PDS roles, the required skills of PDS employees and what professional memberships they should hold are a matter for the PDS.

The governance arrangements of the PDS Board, including the Articles of Association and Board Membership is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/governance/. Details of current and former directorships can be found on the on Companies House Website.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect a permanent Chief Executive Officer will be appointed to lead the Police Digital Service.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

Tony Eastaugh CBE was appointed on 19 August 2024 as Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Police Digital Service (PDS). Any changes to these arrangements will be a matter for the PDS. More information about the leadership of the PDS is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/about-us/.

Appointments to PDS roles, the required skills of PDS employees and what professional memberships they should hold are a matter for the PDS.

The governance arrangements of the PDS Board, including the Articles of Association and Board Membership is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/governance/. Details of current and former directorships can be found on the on Companies House Website.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 6 November (HL1962), how much of the financial benefits delivered by BlueLight Commercial since its foundation are attributable to procurement of (1) goods such as police uniforms and equipment and (2) services such as consultancy and professional advice.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

Further to the answer I gave on 6 November (HL1962), of the £287 million of estimated financial benefits BlueLight Commercial have worked to deliver within policing in England and Wales since 2020/21, an estimated £168 million are attributable to goods and £93m are attributable to services.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 1 November (HL1776), which is the force currently being onboarded to the Single Online Home system, and which are the two remaining forces not using the system.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

At 14 November 2024, Lancashire Constabulary is currently being onboarded to the Single Online Home platform. Avon and Somerset Police and West Yorkshire Police are not currently using the platform. Future onboarding plans are under consideration.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how much has been spent on setting up and maintaining BlueLight Commercial since its foundation.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

Between 2020/21 and 2024/25 BlueLight Commercial has been funded by the Home Office to provide commercial expertise and assistance to policing to identify and make efficiency savings. The Home Office has provided up to £26.4m in funding to Bluelight Commercial during that time.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 12 November (HL2136), what plans they have to link the Single Online Home system directly to police forces' case management systems so that information does not need to be manually transferred between the two.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office funds the police-led Digital Public Contact programme to develop and deliver a range of policing public contact services including the Strategic Integration Hub (i-Hub) which links the Single Online Home platform to forces’ record management systems and reduces the requirement for manual transfer of information.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 12 November (HL2136), what plans they have to upgrade the Single Online Home system to allow it to recognise a person returning to report a subsequent incident by basic information, such as their name and address alone, rather than requiring their full personal information each time a report is made.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office is funding the police-led Digital Public Contact Programme to deliver pilots which enable a member of the public to have a secure log-in and saved details when reporting crimes.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 12 November (HL2136), what plans they have to expand the functionality of the Single Online Home system, for example by allowing the reporting of suspicious behaviour rather than just potential crimes.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

Members of the public can report suspicious behaviour to local forces through the ‘Tell us about’ tab within Police.UK websites on the Single Online Home platform.

Additionally, the StreetSafe tool, also accessed via Police.uk force websites, allows the public to report where they do not feel safe for environmental or behavioural reasons. This enables forces to build an evidence base of where communities have suspicions or feel unsafe for a variety of reasons.

Found: Baroness Hoey, Baroness Jenkin of Kennington, Baroness Ludford, Lord Moynihan, Lord Triesman and Lord Wasserman