Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to ensure that police forces are reimbursed for any additional costs arising as a result of the time taken to implement the Emergency Services Network programme.
Changes to the delivery schedules for the Emergency Services Network (ESN) mean that the majority of costs budgeted for local police forces for ESN implementation will be delayed in line with the revised programme plan, but significant additional costs are not envisaged. The costs to the police of the Airwave system (that ESN will ultimately replace) continue to be split between direct costs (borne centrally before Police Allocations are made) and indirect costs that fall to the forces, and this arrangement is not changing. Once implemented, ESN will result in significant savings in the overall costs of providing emergency services communications to the police and all other services.