Home Office hands EE additional £220m for UK Emergency Services Network

The UK Home Office is to spend over £200m of taxpayers’ money on extending the life of EE’s contract, to develop and provide a 4G network service for the troubled Emergency Services Network (ESN) project, citing delays and cost overruns. Announced on the same day Boris Johnson was confirmed as the winner of the Conservative leadership contest, the additional money means the Lot 3 contract owned by EE will now be worth £895.7m as opposed to the current value of £675.6m. Additionally, the Lot 3 contract will now run until December 2024, as opposed to December 2022, with the transition of emergency services users onto the EE network now set to begin on September 2020. The new terms also include a new payment structure, whereby EE will be paid for the delivery of the network on the basis of material completion, but any infrastructure not completed by the milestone date will lead to payment abatements.

“The need for these changes is because the ESN project is delayed,” said the Home Office in a procurement notice posted online. “It is necessary to extend the Lot 3 contract, which would otherwise expire during (or at best very shortly after) the ESN roll-out period (from September 2020 to December 2022).”

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252467211/Home-Office-hands-EE-additional-220m-for-ESN