Damning report over failed fire controls

Dumped controversial plans to route all Rochdale’s 999 fire calls to Warrington were a “comprehensive failure” costing the taxpayer more than £1 million a year for rent on an empty building, a damning report says today.

The National Audit Office said the Firecontrol project launched by the previous Labour government, was flawed from the start because it did not have the support of fire and rescue services.

The existing Greater Manchester call centre was set to close under Labour’s plans to streamline England’s 46 local control rooms into nine centres, to improve the country’s ability to respond to terrorism, large-scale industrial accidents and natural disasters.

Warrington would have dealt with calls for the entire North-West.

The coalition dumped the plans last year, seven years after it started, but the NAO report revealed that at least £469 million had been wasted.

No computer system had been delivered and eight of the new control centres remained empty and costly to maintain, said the report. London is the only centre being used.

It means the building purchased in Warrington is costing a staggering £99,792 a month — more than £1.19 million in rent a year but remains empty.

The Government has outlined a series of options for the future of the fire service but warns that it is tied into leases of up to 25 years on the regional buildings and if they are left empty that will mean a cut into the budget available for the brigades.

Initially the entire plans were expected to cost just £100m.

The NAO report says: “Ineffective checks and balances during initiation and early stages meant the department for Communities and Local Government 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.”

The NAO said the department took a firmer grip of the project from 2009 and terminated the contract in December, 2010.

Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, said: “This official report represents another damning indictment of Labour’s track record on expensive IT projects. It is no surprise that Labour led the country to the brink of bankruptcy when they can’t even manage the spiralling costs of a misguided project.”