IT problems delay £350m fire service project again

New fire service systems have been delayed

The government has revised the schedule for the beleaguered £350m FireControl project because of ongoing problems with IT systems.

The FireControl project will consolidate 47 fire and rescue service (FRS) local control rooms into nine regional centres, with a goal of greater resilience and the ability to transfer load between sites at busy times.

But the first three regional control centres - in the South West, East Midlands and North East regions - were already delayed by nine months, and will now not go live until May 2011, a further 10-month delay.

The last centres will switch over by the end of 2012, a delay of nearly a year.

Shahid Malik, a junior minister in the Department of Communities and Local Government, wrote to parliament last week informing of the delay.

"In recent months it has become clear that technical problems with developing the IT system in a way which will meet all our and FRS requirements mean that further time is needed to complete the project," he wrote.

"I am proposing therefore to extend the delivery schedule by 10 months."

The main IT supplier for the project is EADS.

Malik added that key Olympic authorities will switch over in time to prepare for the Games, and the network will provide robust fallback arrangements for all fire services over the Olympic period.

But the London system will only be in place by September 2011, 10 months before the Games begin on 27 July 2012.

The London Fire Service had wanted the system in place at least 12 months before the Olympics began to allow for teething difficulties.

Malik said the government would be updating the cost figures contained in the FireControl business case to reflect the rescheduling but said no Fire and Rescue Authority would have to bear any additional costs.