UK Home Office says ESN procurement ‘on track,’ avoids offering key timelines

Selection of a new vendor to replace Motorola Solutions as the supplier of software solutions for the much-anticipated Emergency Services Network (ESN) public-safety LTE system in the United Kingdom (UK) is “on track,” but a Home Office official declined to provide timetables for the procurement or the ESN launch.

Sir Matthew Rycroft, permanent home secretary at the Home Office, told members of the Home Affairs Committee that the reprocurement—necessitated by Motorola Solutions exiting the ESN program, effective this month—is proceeding “very well,” but he did not share details.

“I cannot announce yet who the new supplier will be, but in the normal way, we will ensure that the Committee knows about that announcement,” Rycroft said during the Nov. 29 hearing before the Home Affairs Committee. “We are on track with that stage of the reprocurement, and I will update you as soon as I can.”

With the departure of Motorola Solution from the ESN initiative, there has been £135 million ($169.56 million) in write-offs by the UK government, according to Home Affairs Committee member Simon Fell. Rycroft said he does not believe additional write-offs will be necessary.

“I’m not anticipating more write-offs at this stage,” Rycroft said. “We have been working hard with Motorola and other commercial partners to ensure that the vast majority of the investments that Motorola has made will be used in the future Emergency Services Network.

“I cannot give an absolute guarantee, but I can assure you that the Home Office team running this program is working very hard to make maximum use of the existing investments.”

Existing and future investments for the ESN are projected to cost £11.3 billion ($14.19 billion—more than double the cost of the FirstNet system in the U.S.) through 2035, according to Rycroft. Rycroft noted that he believes that figure includes “all of the running costs” associated with the transition to the ESN from the Airwave TETRA network owned by Motorola Solutions.

The ESN initiative remains a worthwhile endeavor for the UK taxpayer, according to Rycroft.

“The purpose of the program is to replace a technology that will go obsolete and, at the same time, to save the taxpayer money,” he said. “We are still on track to save £200 million per year.”

But Fell noted that the latest £11.3 billion estimated figure is more than double the £5.2 billion ($6.53 billion) ESN cost that was projected in a 2015 business case.

Rycroft offered a potential explanation for the significant difference in the projected cost for the ESN.

“I think that might be because of the running costs,” Rycroft said. “We are also extending it for longer. In other words, the difference is not a waste of money; we are measuring a different thing. We are measuring a service that is going longer into the future than we had previously accounted for.”

However, Home Office documents have indicated that the ESN may not be an operational alternative to the Airwave system for mission-critical voice communications until 2030. And a recent Home Office filing states that the UK government plans to bid the ESN again during the first half of the 2030s in an effort to avoid creating a monopoly situation in public-safety broadband that it claims exists today with Airwave’s TETRA service.

One positive sign for the Home Office is that the CMA ruled that Motorola Solutions’ Airwave system is a monopoly and should be subject to price controls that would result in more than $1 billion in savings to UK taxpayers.

“It’s good news in terms of money,” Rycroft said. “It’s bad news in terms of there being a bit longer to wait before the police and the other emergency services get the new [ESN] kit, but I think 95% of the masts for the new [ESN] … have already been built.”

Motorola Solutions appealed the CMA decision to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), which conducted a two-day hearing on the matter in early August. The Competition Appeal Tribunal has not announced its decision, although Motorola Solutions CEO Greg Brown said last month that he expects the CAT to rule before the end of the year.

Rycroft said that the ESN initially was supposed to be operational “about now—2024,” noting that he recalled that date “from memory.” In fact, the ESN initially was supposed to be operational by the end of 2019, which would have coincided with the expiration of the initial Airwave contract.

Motorola Solutions purchased Airwave in 2016—with the blessing of the Home Office and the CMA, albeit with the understanding that Airwave would be retired three years later—after serving as the primary technology vendor for the TETRA system since its creation.

Rycroft indicated that the transition from Airwave to the ESN does not have to happen as urgently as Home Office officials once believed, because the effective life of TETRA technology is expected to last several years longer than previously projected.

“The absolutely crucial date is when the current system becomes obsolete,” Rycroft said. “At one point, we thought that that would be in the late 2020s, and we now know that it will not be until the 2030s.

“So we do have longer, which is not a reason for delay, but it does mean that we will ensure that the new emergency services network is up and running for the police and other emergency services well before the current system has to be turned off.”

When asked about a transition date, Rycroft declined to speculate.

“Well, it will depend on this re-procurement,” he said. “I will keep you updated when there is any change, once that re-procurement has concluded.”