£2B in UK taxpayer cash later, and still no Emergency Services Network By the end of this month, the UK Home Office will have spent just under £2 billion ($2.4 billion) on a new critical communications network for the country's police, fire and ambulance services – with nothing to show for it, according to a report by the National Audit Office (NAO). Even worse, the multi-year project has fallen …
Worked for a company which was integrating ESN into their main product, using functionality provided by Motorola. Whilst our code was beautiful, elegant and well tested, it ultimately came down to Motorola holding up their end of the deal. Unfortunately, Motorola's functionality was the most unreliable and inconsistent SAAS I have ever encountered in 30 yrs of professional development. It is truly the worst example of SAAS I have ever had to deal with.
To make matters worse, over the course of about 6 months, most of the project team realised they were being underpaid and left for pastures new, including myself. Last I heard, the company were having some redundancies to try and get the project back on schedule.
We're now 5 years past the end point of a 5 year design & implement project. Airwave looks set to out do the decade long NHS IT fubar that spaffed about £6Bn.
Duplicating the military tactical radio net with a few modifications to suit the slightly different operating environment* should have been a serious option.
* some secret squirrel stuff gets changed, base station network will be fixed and higher powered.
> What other net did you have in mind?
Well, I had largely forgotten the research project I had a small interaction with in the 1980s, until this recent ElReg article
https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/07/us_air_force_awards_755m/
I think a MANET is probably a better upgrade to Tetra than commercial 4G…
Not disputing IR35 doesn't help, but ESN was a complete charlie-foxtrot long before that.
It's been pointed out to the powers that be (often!) that large parts of the UK are rural and hilly and barely have a 2G signal a lot of the time, never mind 4G and the level of infrastructure required just to sort that could not be delivered in the project time frame.
British taxpayers who are having a good day and want it ruined can download the report here.
Good day?
Think so?
British taxpayers who voted Labour and Remain surely did not expect much better anything else from the present government.
And they haven't had a good day in a great many years.
The only thing British taxpayers have seen is the UK go to.the.dogs.
Whilst being litterally sold by the pound, including seats at the House.
A really sad, sad state of affairs of which only they are to blame.
.
Not everyone who has voted Tory also voted 'Leave'. Only the loony far right were even mildly enthusiastic about BREXIT and those donkeys were led by two liars (Boris and Farage) who are both rich enough to survive outside the EU without even a thought..
Plenty of us are still of the opinion that BREXIT was about the worst thing we could have chosen to do other then shoot ourselves dead.
True, but Tory remainers have been sidelined, ostracised or just plain removed at most opportunities by the ERG.
The drift of the party to the right is blatantly obvious to all, and we should be terrified of that drift turning into something much, much nastier.
If everyone only commented about their immediate area of business, the world would be a truely awful place.
Or is it only people you disagree with who shouldn't comment about politics, and area of life that affects far more people on a daily basis than football ever will.
He sure has. Shame he didn't point out that he housed ONE migrant for a few days who wrote him a beautiful letter of thanks.
I know I'm going to get downvoted big time for this but maybe, just maybe, some of us would have sympathy for genuine refugees but lack it for economic migrants.
@Binraider
"True, but Tory remainers have been sidelined"
Sounds like the right thing really. We voted brexit, implemented brexit surely remainers should be less involved in aspects involving brexit unless they are able to be impartial and carry out their duties (hard in a polarized topic). Note how brexiters were sidelined while in the EU and probably would have been as MEP's if people didnt get to vote for them.
"The drift of the party to the right is blatantly obvious to all"
The leap to the left was obvious and intentional. Drifting back towards the right doesnt seem to be an issue, being still so far left is a bit of an issue for people wanting a centre right party to run the country.
"and we should be terrified of that drift turning into something much, much nastier."
Unfortunately while people focus on a nasty right they forget about a nasty left. One imposing policy to make us all worse off while trying to control our lives.
> We voted brexit
Is that the `Royal "We"`? Cos I bloody well didn't, and the country as a whole could hardly have been more undecided on that "non-binding referendum" if it had tried. And if it were 48/52 the other way round, i'm sure you'd be crying for another referendum, rather than calling it undemocratic to demand a sizeable majority to close the matter.
Had the referendum been a legally binding one, then it's very likely that many of the leave campaign would have gone to jail for all the lies and dirty tricks, such as those by Dominic Cummings, Alex Lebedev and Cambridge Analytica..
The only beneficiaries of Brexit are Russia, China and a few rich Tories with their snouts in the UKCA trough.
>The only beneficiaries of Brexit are Russia, China and a few rich Tories with their snouts in the UKCA trough.
And the happy fish.
I think a few european politicians might be breathing a sigh of relief that they don't have to deal with the [F/G/Bel/It]-exit annoyances in their own countries anymore
Let’s call it what but was .. and remains today. Proroguing Parliament, braking the law, breaking international treaties etc .. spot on the money.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/misconduct-public-office
Furriners, Shamina Begum, Migrants, NI Protocol, EU Retained Law Bill, Environmental Pollution (looking at you water companies), ClimTe Chances obligations, Covid Fast Lane, Lobbying, Palantir in the NHS ……
Alas Brexit was not implemented by Brexiteers, but rather by the Civil Service.
Even if the majority of them weren’t opposed to it (showing our “democracy “ in action), you don’t really expect them to have done it effectively do you?
HS2, Ajax procurement, Universal Credit etc etc
removed at most opportunities by the ERG
One Brexit had become the orthodox cant of the Tories, anyone of a different opinion either shut up or left. I respect those who left a lot more than those who carried on parrotting a line that they obviously disagreed with.
That lure of potential ministerial seats must be *very* powerful!
If you voted leave or tory, you need to apologise and pay a higher rate of tax to cover the damage you've cased. If you voted both, you need to surrender all assets for redistribution to those on the right side of history and have your voting rights cancelled until you can pass an exam that demonstrates empathy and basic reasoning skills.
If you really expect voting Labour to improve this situation you're in for a big disappointment. This is a Home Office civil service cockup, and since success in the civil service is measured by how big your department and your budgets are, expecting those useless plonkers to successfully manage an engineering project is a pipe dream.
the claim time and time again is that by outsourcing all the responsibility for a project you outsource the risk as well. I've seen too many public sector contracts go like this and then watched the bills for continuing to operate legacy systems role in while ccn after ccn is required to get the replacement completed
Theresa May
Amber Rudd
Sajid Javid
Priti Patel
Suella Braverman
Grant Shapps
Suella Braverman
.. are the list of Tory Home Secretarie, who ultimately lead this project.
I don’t see any of Suella Braverman’s - or predecessor’s - rabid anti-migrant/anti-Shamina Begum rhetoric allowing any time to be spent on this.
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