Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 12 March (HL2020), what is their latest estimate of (1) the completion dates for each of three phases of the design and build phase of the Emergency Services Network, and (2) the cost to completion of each phase.

The design and build phase of ESN is broken down into three phases:

1. Design and build of the “Prime” product which brings together the push-to-talk application on a range of devices (including handheld, vehicles and aircraft) utilising the prioritised EE network. This is due to complete in October 2021 (later than previously communicated) and is forecast to cost £463m. The majority of functionality required to switch-off Airwave is included in “Prime”. The remainder of the supplier implementation programme is made up on one final release to include the remainder functionality needed to commence Transition from ESN to Airwave.

2. The addition of masts to EE’s core network to provide the required network coverage for ESN. As per the response provided to HL2020 on 12th March 2020, it is planned that this activity and subsequent network optimisation will be completed during 2021. Costs for this work will be paid via a monthly service charge which will reduce at the start of 2022 from c.£10m per month to c.£6m per month.

3. Delivery of additional coverage e.g. in remote areas of the country and the London Underground. As per the response provided to HL2020 on 12th March 2020, this will complete in parallel with national deployment of the ESN and is forecast to cost £334m.

Independent management and consultancy spend from the inception of the programme in 2015 is £145.5M split between Delivery Support Services and Technical Consultancy