North-west fire services embark on major IT control integration

Fire services in Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria aim to pick up the pieces after FireControl fiasco

Fire services in the north-west are set to embark on a major overhaul of their IT systems, with the introduction of a computer-aided dispatch system and integrated communications for fire services in Cheshire, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Cumbria.

The new system is expected to provide better data to the roughly 1,000 staff that support fire crews in the area, which will operate from a new operation centre on Lingley Mere, Warrington run by North West FireControl.

The successful bidder will be expected to provide the software, hardware and data storage for fire services across the region, using real-time tracking of fire vehicles and crew, along with caller location services.

The computer-aided dispatch system will be able to identify and match the location of incidents down to the premises level, enabling fire crews to quickly arrive on scene.

The dispatch system is expected to be able to establish which fire crew is best placed to answer a call and arrive there quickest.

The communication system is also expected to integrate with the Airwave radio system and the call answering system must be able to record and store voice calls for up to five years.

In future, North West FireControl may look to integrate feeds from CCTV cameras into its dispatch system.

The decision to look for a supplier capable of serving four separate fire services comes in the wake of the failed £469m national FireControl system.

The project to replace 46 local control rooms for the UK's fire and rescue services was eventually abandoned in the face of mounting IT cost.

Government spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, last year called it a "comprehensive failure".

"It was approved on the basis of unrealistic estimates of costs and under-appreciation of the complexity of the IT involved and the project was hurriedly implemented and poorly managed," the NAO said in its report.

North West FireControl expects to award the contract for its integrated command centre by September 2012.