Fire brigades claim £1.6m for "wasted" radio projects

Cash-strapped UK fire services are claiming £1.6m in compensation from the government for money wasted on developing regional radio systems.

The money is being claimed for projects that have had to be scrapped because of the government's introduction of a national digital radio system strategy last summer.

The national Firelink project was created to oversee procurement of a digital system following a review of the ability of the emergency services to communicate during a major disaster that took place in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the US.

But this has meant many forces have had to scrap individual projects to replace ageing and obsolete analogue radio systems and the government has been forced to reimburse fire brigades for these costs.

A guidance notice for claiming the money sent round to forces earlier this year stated: "Work done under the previous (regional) strategy will reckon for compensation only if it was wasted. There may be other costs involved in terminating the regional strategy that have involved unavoidable and/or nugatory spend – such as the costs of redundancies and meeting the costs of terminated contracts."

A spokesman for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister told silicon.com 44 fire brigades have since submitted claims.

He said: "Claims are currently being processed and we hope to complete this shortly."

Bidders who have been invited to submit proposals for the Firelink contract include Airwave mmo2, Cogent, Crown Castle, Frequentis, Fylde Microsystems, Marconi, NTL, Thales and VT Merlin Communications. Airwave has already been awarded the contract for police forces.

The fire service contract will be awarded next summer and the national radio system is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of 2007.

In a further development this week the Firelink project said it has completed a risk assessment for fire services keeping ageing radio systems operational until the handover to a national system in 2007.

Guidance includes taking radio handsets from police forces as they move over to the Airwave digital network by 2005.

The notice said: "[The] consultant’s report indicated that systems were obsolete and would become increasingly unreliable beyond the year 2002.