It’s not often that one government organisation is so publicly critical of the work of another one. But this report by the National Audit Office is refreshingly direct:
The project to replace the 46 Fire and Rescue Services’ local control rooms across England with nine purpose-built regional control centres linked by a new IT system has been a comprehensive failure, according to the National Audit Office. The Department for Communities and Local Government acted to cut its losses by terminating the contract in December 2010, seven years after it had begun, but at least ?469 million will have been wasted, with no IT system delivered and eight of the nine new regional control centres remaining empty and costly to maintain.
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The FiReControl project was flawed from the outset because it did not have the support of those essential to its success – local Fire and Rescue Services. The Department tried to impose a national control system, without having sufficient mandatory powers and without properly consulting with the Fire and Rescue Services. These local bodies prize their distinctiveness and the freedom they have to choose their own equipment.
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The Department rushed the start of the project, failing to follow proper procedures. Ineffective checks and balances during initiation and early stages meant the Department committed itself to the project on the basis of broad-brush and inaccurate estimates of costs and benefits and an unrealistic delivery timetable, and agreed an inadequate contract with its IT supplier. The Department under-appreciated the project’s complexity, and then mismanaged the IT contractor’s performance and delivery. The Department failed to provide the necessary leadership to make the project successful, over-relying on poorly managed consultants and failing to sort out early problems with delivery by the contractor…..
?469 million pounds wasted…. just think what that could have been spent on. Enough to make you weep.
The project was cancelled, but the new regional fire centres were still built, and rent is being paid.
“Our” regional fire control centre is far away in Cambridge – rent is still being paid on it at ?133,329 per month.
It’s a lot of money – but wasting money did not worry Cleggy when he wanted to get AV in – look at these costs.
*The total cost of the referendum will be up to £250 million. The spending breaks down as: the referendum itself costs £82 million with the cost of voter education ahead of the referendum at £9 million. Should AV pass, the cost of electronic vote counting necessitated by AV will be £130 million and the cost of voter education with AV will be £26 million*
Two wrongs do not make a right but AV was, in my opinion, something the public did not give a fig about.
Any heads rolled yet?
Did you miss David Blunkett admitting that the anti-AV campaign had made these figures up? The cost of the referendum of course would have remained the same, however we had voted.