Airwave emergency services' communications system costs SIX TIMES more than it should - Liam Maxwell

Emergency services communications contract costing £450m every year when it could be done for just £70m, says government CTO Liam Maxwell

The Airwave emergency services' communication system is costing taxpayers more than six times the price of a more modern system, according to government chief technology officer Liam Maxwell.

According to Maxwell, it currently costs taxpayers some £450m annually to deliver Airwave to emergency services - whereas a better system based on more modern technology could provide similar capabilities for just £70m per year.

"The emergency services' mobile communications programme, which is currently a 2G [second generation] contract run by a company called Airwave, costs about £450m to provide a 2G radio service to the police, something that you could do right now for about £70m a year if you started off on your own," said Maxwell.

Maxwell made the admission while giving evidence before the Public Accounts Committee, describing the contract that was originally signed to deliver Airwave as "ruinous" - but he promised that he is working to implement a newer, cheaper system.

"We are replacing that [Airwave] with something called the emergency services' mobile communications programme, which we split up into four lots. Lot 3 of that programme is about delivery of telecommunication services into the police, and it will be bought in a series of components, but those components will add up to more than £100m," he said.

The new system will be based on 4G or LTE technology. However, standards have not yet been developed for the kind of functionality that the emergency services require, said Maxwell.

Another change is that the initial contract will be for four years, in contrast to the decade-plus long-term deals that were common in the flurry of government IT activity that started around the turn of the millennium.

Airwave was introduced in 2000 by O2, and was acquired by Australian-owned investment group Macquarie Group in April 2007, as part of Macquarie's European Infrastructure Fund II. Macquarie also controls Thames Water and National Car Parks under the same fund.

Airwave had a troubled introduction, with multiple complaints from different police forces and other public bodies that used it that it was unreliable. Even as late as 2011, when the system should have been well bedded-in, police officers claimed to have experienced "significant difficulties" with the equipment, with many reportedly resorting to their own mobile phones instead.

Maxwell believes that long contracts that effectively provide monopolies on supply to the public sector, such as Airwave, provide poor value for money - especially towards the end of the contract when organisations are tied in to old technology and unable to take advantage of cheaper and more functional new systems.