ESN: the user
perspective
Critical Communications Today reports on September’s TCCA/BAPCO-hosted webinar,
exploring English fire and rescue services’ - apparently ambivalent - attitude towards the
Emergency Services Network
Earlier this year, the University of Leeds contacted
all English fire and rescue services asking
them to take part in research looking at their
attitudes towards – and readiness for – the UK’s
burgeoning public safety broadband ESN system.
The subsequent report, which was commissioned by
the Home Office Fire Directorate, was finally published at
the beginning of September. It consisted of mixed findings,
some of which will likely have made uneasy reading for
the Emergency Services Mobile Communications
Programme (ESMCP).
The publication of the report was followed later on in
the month by a joint TCCA and BAPCO-hosted webinar,
in which Professor David Allen of Leeds University Business
School presented the data to ESN/FRS stakeholders, as well
as other interested parties from across the world.
The panel also consisted of ESMCP deputy director Steve
Whatson, and Ian Taylor, representing the UK National Fire
Chiefs Council.
ICT infrastructure
Having described his research methodology, professor
Allen began his discussion of the findings by describing
the “heterogeneous” nature of English fire and rescue
services. This was a word that would come up throughout
the presentation, and a key factor in some of the more
disheartening findings when it comes to ESN.
He started by giving an overview of ICT infrastructure
across the different English FRSs, using it as an indicator of
the current state of this aspect of service operations.
The first notable statistic in relation to this was that
over half (52 per cent) of services saw the management of
pre-existing legacy systems as either “challenging or very
challenging”. At the same time, only two technologies were
identified as being up to date by at least 90 per cent of the
services questioned. These were automatic vehicle location
in relation to the management of resources, and automatic
call distribution.
According to professor Allen, these findings had previously
been reflected in the recent annual assessment of English FRSs
published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and
Fire and Rescue Services.
That report, he said, stated that “some services had been
slow to exploit new ways of working enabled by technology,
and that nearly half inspected were using broken, dated, or
unreliable IT systems”.
While this certainly does not auger well for the successful
uptake of new technology (for instance, ESN), perhaps even
more dispiriting were findings that the progress of some FRSs
was being hampered by their own organisational structure.
This often made it extremely difficult – according to
professor Allen – “to engage with or implement complex or
large-scale ICT projects while at the same time maintaining
existing systems”.
Describing some of these structures, he said: “One current
model is where the FRS links with a single local council and
covers the same geographical area. Research feedback often
indicated that the fire and rescue service saw itself as just a
separate department within the council, with the two also
sharing IT facilities. Critically, when it comes to IT, there is
often just one ‘link’ person between the two organisations.”
He continued that another reason why this structure
is often problematic when it comes to the roll-out of new
technology has been the financial hit taken by local authorities
Only two
technologies
were identified as
being up to date
by at least 90 per
cent of services
questioned
56 www.criticalcomms.com October 2020
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