Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
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.