FireControl, the government's ambitious £380m project to
replace 46 stand alone emergency response centres with nine fully
redundant regional centres, will be five months late, the
government said yesterday.
However, any budget overruns were expected to be minimal, the
primary contractor, EADS Defence
& Security Systems (EADS DS), told Computer Weekly.
Fire minister Sadiq Khan told parliament that a thorough review
of all aspects of the project had revealed "a number of
difficulties with the ICT and other dimensions of the project."
This meant the first three regional control centres would start
up nine months late in summer 2010, but the overall project would
be only five months late. The expected completion date is now
autumn 2012.
The entire system, budgeted at £1bn, is set to enhance the UK's
ability to cope with natural and man-made emergencies. It has three
main parts: the FireControl regional control centres, the FireLink
digital radio communications network that links the FireControl
centres with each other and with their vehicles and teams, and New
Dimension, which covers new vehicles and training.
EADS DS is responsible for integrating off-the-shelf processing
systems, applications and communications from about a dozen main
suppliers to create FireControl. It is also responsible for
ensuring data from existing autonomous fire and rescue authorities
as well as external suppliers such as BT and Cable & Wireless
are transferred accurately to the new centralised database.
Philippe Meleard, the EADS DS vice-presidentresponsible for
FireControl, admitted delays in delivering some parts of the
project, notably the mobile data terminals that will link emergency
response vehicles to the central database. These delays were due
mainly to differing expectations of its functionality between the
government's project owner, the department of communities &
local government (CLG), the Fire & Rescue Service and EADS DS.
These were resolved last summer and a new phased delivery strategy
agreed with all stakeholders, Meleard said. "Since August we have
met every single deadline," he said.
Meleard said EADS DS was still waiting for FireLink. This is an
upgraded version, specified by EADS DS, of the controversial
Airwave digital radio system used by the police and ambulance
services. Without FireLink there is no integrated communication
between the centres and the teams in the field.
Meleard said he was "comfortable" with the budget as it stood
and did not anticipate asking the government for more money. He
said the delays meant temporary workers who now staffed the local
response centres would have to be kept on for the extra five
months. However, the local authorities were responsible for paying
them. This was the only extra expense he anticipated under the
existing contract.
Meleard said eight of the nine regional centres were already
built. EADS DS was installing and testing sub-systems such as
fault-tolerant computers from Hewlett-Packard, fire station "end
boxes" (essentially local communications servers), large plasma
display screens for the control rooms, and the vehicles' mobile
data terminals, among others.
"We are testing each sub-system as it is finished and again when
we integrate it with the existing sub-systems. It is like
assembling Russian dolls," he said.
However, the firm was still some time away from testing the
fully integrated system, which depends on a single-image Oracle
database replicated at each centre. This allows an operator in any
centre to take emergency calls, verify them and dispatch
appropriate teams. This level of redundancy is crucial to providing
the fault-tolerant resilience required by the government, Meleard
said.