MPs Slam FiReControl IT Rescue Project

Having already received widespread scorn for wasting millions of taxpayers’ money, the FiReControl project is now being panned again as the government attempts to save it from being a complete disaster.

Described by the Public Accounts Committee as “one of the worst cases of project failure the Committee had seen”, FiReControl sought to merge the control rooms of 46 local fire and rescue authorities into a network of nine regional control centres running a national computer system.

But it was killed off in 2010 after numerous delays, leaving empty control centres and at least £482 million wasted. Another £82.8 million was subsequently pumped into a FiReControl rescue project, consisting of 22 separate and locally-led initiatives, to gain benefits from the work that had been completed, use those empty centres and improve collaboration across fire authorities.

Saving FiReControl from total disaster

That rescue operation is now in doubt too, however, with four of the nine centres still empty and seven of the 22 projects running late. Two of them have been delayed by a year.

Having initially projected savings of £126 million, once the refreshed initiative was complete, that fell by £2 million.

The PAC said it was “sceptical that projected savings, benefits and timescales will be achieved”. It also complained of a lack of clarity from the Department for Communities and Local Government, which is leading the operation.

“Three years after the project was cancelled, the DCLG still hasn’t decided what it is going to do with many of the specially designed, high-specification facilities and buildings which had been built,” said Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the PAC.

“Relying on multiple local projects risks value for money. We are not confident that local teams have the right IT and procurement skills to get good deals from suppliers and to monitor contracts effectively.

“There is a risk that the DCLG has swung from an overly prescriptive national approach to one that does not provide enough national oversight and coordination and fails to meet national needs or achieve economies of scale.”

Comparisons between FiReControl and the disastrous NHS’ National Programme for IT (NPfIT), which also sought to boost collaboration with a national network. The latter wasted billions more, however, and CSC, one of the main NPfIT contractors, is still set to make another £2 billion out of the project, despite its repeated failures to supply software on time.

Both initiatives were “over-specified”, delayed and staff had little confidence they would work, noted Tony Collins, of the Campaign4Change.

“Perhaps the key lesson from the Firecontrol and the NPfIT projects is that large private companies can force their staff to use unified IT systems whereas Whitehall cannot force semi-autonomous public sector organisations to use whatever IT is bought centrally,” Collins wrote.

“It’s right that the fire services are buying local IT and it’s right that the NHS is now too. If the will is there to do it cheaply, linking up the IT in the NHS can be done without huge central administrative edifices.”

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