DMFD54 Replacement Mobilising Solutions

Report LFC-0261 to the London Fire Commissioner seeks agreement to a corporate project for a replacement mobilising solution and resources for a dedicated project team. It also seeks agreement to adopting an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution and an early market engagement exercise with solution suppliers.

Developing a Statement of Requirements (SOR), carrying out a procurement and subsequently implementing a new mobilising system, is an extremely complex and resource intensive activity. Whilst the London Fire Brigade has significant experience of replacing mobilising systems (Vision is the third system), this is an expensive proposition and carries a high degree of risk. Risks are mostly associated with disruption to the mobilising process during system deployment and switch over. From an operational perspective, the Brigade must deliver a resilient emergency call handling and despatch service in order to comply with statutory requirements.

In recent months, reports have been submitted to both the London Fire Commissioner’s Corporate Services and Operations directorate boards to ascertain the viability of replacing the current mobilising system, without engaging in a costly and time-consuming procurement (i.e. continuing to use the Vision system and simply moving to the next version). Having consulted widely, it is clear that a new procurement will be required. However, there is an option for a change of approach from the Brigade.

From a governance perspective, it is proposed that the project would comprise three phases as set out below.

Report LFC-0261 primarily concerns Phase 2, requirements gathering (includes early supplier engagement). This is on the assumption that the recommendation to establish this corporate project is approved. Phase 1 of the project is essentially enabling activity and no specific additional funding will be required to complete this phase, as this can be accommodated within existing resources. Phase 1 ensures that funding for Phase 2 is authorised and that Phase 2 can therefore commence immediately at the start of the 2020/21 financial year.

Background

The Brigade first introduced a computerised mobilising system in February 1990. This was a Marconi based system that took more than nine years to plan and implement. In 2004, a new system from Motorola (ProCad) was introduced after some seven years of planning and preparation.

Following the Government’s decision to abandon the national Fire Control project in 2010, the Brigade decided in 2011 to seek to replace the Motorola ProCad system with a new generation solution. The new mobilising system chosen, which remains the Brigade’s current system (Vision), was supplied by Capita and went live in November 2015. This was some four years and eight months from the decision to procure a new system. The contract was for the provision of mobilising and related services, including an ICCS^[1] and station-end equipment.

At the time the decision was taken to renew the mobilising system, the former London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) decided that the new solution should be a fully managed service. This meant that the full mobilising function (including staffing) would be provided to the Brigade as a service (i.e., outsourced). It was thought that significant efficiencies might be possible, primarily around using new technology, new ways of working and reductions in staff.

The specification for the new solution was developed on the basis of a full-service solution. However, some nine months later, with the LFEPA under new political control, it was agreed that the mobilising service should remain in-house. After competitive tendering, the contract was subsequently awarded to Capita using the original specification for the system elements. The service currently in operation remains aligned with that tender specification. Of course, a number of enhancements have been made since system go-live in late 2015.

At the time of the original outsource decision, LFEPA agreed that there should be an in-house bid for the service. Although this bid did not progress to the point of submitting a tender, this effectively precluded some Brigade control staff from having any significant input into the specification of the system. Although this could not be avoided (as there was a need to avoid a conflict of interest), not allowing control staff to have significant input to the specification has potentially contributed to some of the usability issues that Vision has experienced.

The cost of the mobilising system contract with Capita over a ten-year period to 2022 will be £19,600,00. This cost includes £325,000 per annum toward the cost of a technical refresh.

Existing contract and extension

LFC officers agree that the Brigade must re-procure its mobilising solution as there is no provision in law to extend the current contract and retain the Vision system beyond the current contract end date. The contract runs until 2022 and has provision for extensions to 2026. To facilitate the procurement and implementation of a replacement mobilising solution, the existing contract with Capita will need to be extended beyond the August 2022 end-date.

Previous experience suggests that it can take over four years to specify, procure and implement a new mobilising solution. It will, therefore, be necessary to activate the contract extensions beyond 2022, probably up to 2024 initially, as this would fit with the four-year timetable. The need for any further extension beyond 2024 would need to be reviewed as part of the project.

The cost of extending the contract beyond 2022, is not included in the financial model for the contract. Therefore, it is not possible to predict precisely the cost of extension(s). The current budget for annual payments to Capita for the Vision system is £1,561,004. This includes a £325,000 annual payment for a contractually agreed technical refresh. There will be no technical refreshes past the 2022 date and therefore this payment will cease from August 2022. This will result in a revenue saving of £216,000 in the 2022/23 financial year rising to £325,000 for a full year.

The contract stipulates that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) K45U index for Average Weekly earnings is to be used when applying inflation. The current estimate for this is three per cent per annum which gives rise to projected service charge(s) as follows:

• 2021/22 – £1,643,206
• 2022/23 – £1,476,503*
• 2023/24 – £1,412,798
• 2024/25 – £1,455,182
• 2025/26 – £1,498,837

* this includes the part year charge for the technical refresh

Provision has been made within the medium-term forecast (revised through the 2020/21 budget process) for increases of £49,000 in 2022/23 and £45K in 2023/24 which is the end of the current four-year forecast period.

Lessons learned

The Vision system went live in November 2015 after several delays. It is well known that there were a significant number of issues with the system after go-live. The Brigade has worked with Capita to ensure that any problems are resolved and that the system performs in a satisfactory way.

Before it selected the solution offered by Capita, which included the Vision mobilising system, the Brigade produced a detailed set of requirements. Each tenderer had to demonstrate the extent to which it could meet those requirements with its standard offering. Inevitably, there was a gulf between the Brigade’s ideal requirements and some of the functionality offered by potential suppliers. The decision to select a particular product took into account the ‘best fit’ with the Brigade’s requirements, alongside other matters such as price. The extent to which the chosen solution did not meet the Brigade’s mandatory requirements resulted in enhancement/ adjustments to the offered system to build in those requirements. This was separate from the work necessary to make sure that any solution interfaced properly with the Brigade’s back-office systems like the Staff Attendance Recording System (StARS) – which supplies details of officers on duty to be mobilised – and the Incident Management System (IMS) – which holds the Brigade’s definitive record of incidents attended and supplies data to the Home Office as part of national statistics collection.

Any new project will make extensive use of the ’lessons learned’ log that was produced as part of closure of the project and a separate but related document recently produced by control management that highlighted some lessons learned issues. The objective will be to leverage previous experience relating to this project (and others) in order to minimise the risk of similar problems happening in respect to any new mobilising system deployment. In particular, health and safety advisors will be engaged to ensure that important aspects of the system such as “font size” and associated usability related issues, are factored into requirements.

A stakeholder analysis will be carried out as part of the project and steps will be taken to ensure that representative bodies are included in the governance process in an open and transparent manner.

Procurement options for a replacement mobilising solution

There are broadly two options for the replacement of the mobilising solution:

• Option 1: Developing a custom specification for a Brigade mobilising solution (as per Vision and previous mobilising systems), procuring a system that most closely meets these requirements and then undertaking any necessary customisations.
• Option 2: Procuring an ‘off-the-shelf’ package and ‘bending the business’ to implement it without customisation, instead configuring it to the Brigade’s needs.

Option 1 – Custom specification for LFB

This option would essentially repeat the exercise undertaken to procure the Vision product. This would involve the Brigade producing a detailed statement of requirements and subsequently initiating a procurement, based on those detailed requirements. Based on the last procurement, none of the solutions offered by tenderers met the Brigade’s requirements exactly, and this is likely to be the position again. It is likely that the Brigade would need to accept a solution that does not meet every requirement and some customisation (and/or new software) needed to bring the system closer to the Brigade’s requirements.

Option 1 may require significantly more funding than for Option 2. As the solution would be built around the LFC’s specific requirements, it is reasonable to predict that this will require significantly more resource throughout the entire project.

Based on past experience, and previous timescales, it is expected that this would take more than four years to complete (to go-live). However, this would depend upon the extent of the customisation.

The advantages and disadvantages of Option 1 may be summarised as follows, (see below)

Option 2 – Off-the-shelf package

Option 2 would be to seek to use an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution and ‘bend the business’ to take advantage of the solution, rather than build or adapt a solution to meet specific LFB requirements. This could be done in two parts:

• The project team would be tasked with developing a high level SOR for specialist external subject matter experts (SME) to support the Brigade with the replacement mobilising solution project. This SOR would include a statement of the Brigade’s objective in replacing its mobilising system, high level requirements and terms of reference for the SME to operate under. The SME initial role would be to assist the Brigade with research and to explore existing products and services available in the marketplace. This could include reference site visits to other users. This would increase our awareness of current capability in this market.
• The second part would be for the SME (acting as part of the corporate project team) to engage with control management and staff, and other stakeholders (to be identified as part of a stakeholder analysis) to define the SOR for a new mobilising solution. In addition, the SME would engage with the market on options for optimising and developing our SOR, within the functional parameters of available solutions. This approach would help the Brigade make its requirements less niche; by understanding the functionality of commonly available ’off-the-shelf’ solutions and ensures the specification avoids any solution requiring costly customisation.

Whilst this option sets out to avoid specifically customising a solution just for London, it is important to remember that any solution selected will need to be interfaced with existing Brigade back office systems, particularly StARS which feeds the mobilising solution with details about resource availability and capability for mobilising. Ensuring that such interfaces are designed, implemented and tested effectively is a time consuming and complex task.

It is thought that this process would be shorter than for Option 1, as the Brigade would not be asking for significant changes to the base product. However, precise timescales are not possible at this stage.

The advantages and dis-advantages of this approach may be summarised as follows:-

Preferred approach

LFB officers are recommending Option 2 for the new mobilising solution. They believe this option will on balance, be simpler to implement, and probably less costly. However, it may require significant business change for both Control staff and the way officers and fire appliances are mobilised (depending on the system selected after tendering). Until potential solutions are identified and a ‘gap analysis’ undertaken, it would not be possible to quantify the extent of business changes that might be required.

Care would have to be taken, as part of the evaluation process, that any new system was not so far away from our requirements that it in fact it does not meet our requirements. Mobilising systems are capable of being extensively configured to fit in different operating environments and this is perhaps an area that the Brigade should concentrate upon.

Costs of a replacement mobilising solution

The two options described above could give rise to widely differing level of costs. It is not possible, therefore, to predict the total cost of any new solution with any degree of accuracy. Instead, an indicative range of costs is set out below.

The market for mobilising solutions has significantly changed since the last procurement undertaken by the Brigade. There are now more suppliers and delivery options and generally more flexibility in the marketplace.

Impact of cloud-based solutions

The current mobilising system is entirely an ‘on-premise’ system, with Capita servers located at the Brigade’s Primary Control site within the London Operations Centre (LOC) at Merton, and at the secondary control room site at Stratford.

In line with the way that ICT services are moving in general, a number of mobilising solution providers now offer for some or all elements of their solution to be cloud-based. Cloud-based solutions are hosted remotely (usually in specialist or commercial data centres) and are accessed securely by users via the internet or dedicated communication links. In some cloud-based solutions there may be an element(s) of the system on-premise, but in some there may be no server hardware/software installed locally.

This means that it could be possible for the Brigade to use a mobilising solution (or elements of it) that is not installed at the LOC at Merton (or the fall-back Control at Stratford). Access to the system would be via Internet links and the Brigade would be consuming a service on a ‘pay-to-use’ basis.

The costs of a cloud-based solution are less predictable at this stage and will potentially shift the balance of cost from capital to revenue. Previous procurements have generally been supported by capital funding, with system support charged on a revenue basis. With cloud-based solutions, there may be little, if anything, that could be capital funded.

Soft market testing

Soft market testing will not be as straight forward as in previous procurements, primarily because of the advent of cloud technology. The last procurement did not really have to consider a cloud-based system as the market really was not mature enough at that time. However, the current landscape is quite different, and it may now be possible to procure a system that has cloud based (pay per use elements), in conjunction with on-premise infrastructure. The Brigade has limited experience of cloud-based solutions of this scale and therefore could not rely upon previous experience to guide the Brigade at present, particularly without a fully developed SOR. Once it has concluded early market engagement with suppliers and a clearer picture of the different offerings available in the market is available, it should be possible to provide more accurate cost predictions. Until this has been completed, the Brigade need to rely on the historic costs of procurement and implementation to make an assessment of the likely future cost.

Costs of procurement and implementation

Using the procurement and implementation of the current mobilising system as a guide, the overall costs of a replacement solution could be as set out in the table below.

These costs included the cost of the system (hardware / software / licenses), project management costs of deployment, customisation, testing and go-live, as well as development and testing of interface to Brigade systems such as StARS. However, the costs above are for the existing ‘on-premise’ solution. Any new solution may be on-premise or cloud-based, at this stage the Brigade does not know which solution design may prevail. If the selected solution is to be cloud based, it would expect the implementation costs generally to be less than if it was based on-premise.

Running costs

The running costs of £15,000,000 to £25,000,000 are based on Option 2 and the assumption that these costs will be less than Option 1, as this option precludes having a bespoke system for LFB.

However, as the Brigade is proposing a different approach to the procurement this time (an ‘off-the-shelf’ product), coupled with changes in technology and system delivery options, it is not possible to provide anything other than a cost range at this point. Based on the information available right now, we believe that this may be in the region of £15 million – £25 million over a 10-year contract term. Because the Brigade do not know whether a cloud-based solution will be recommended as a result of tendering, it cannot at this point identify the split between costs which will be capital and those that will be revenue (as explained in para 37). Cloud-based systems will have less of a capital requirement and a higher revenue requirement.

Local Digital Declaration (LDD)

In May 2019, the LFC signed the Local Digital Declaration (LDD) on behalf of the Brigade. The LDD which is signed by national and local government bodies, is seeking to co-create the conditions for the next generation of local public services, where technology is an enabler rather than a barrier to service improvements, and services are “a delight for citizens and officials to use”. It is acknowledged that one size doesn’t fit all, but by developing common building blocks local authorities, and other public services, it will be possible to build services more quickly, flexibly and effectively. Only in this more open and flexible market, it is believed, will the Brigade unlock the full potential for innovation.

The LDD ambition requires both a culture shift and a technology shift and sets out five principles to help do this (available via the link above). In particular, and relevant to any new or replacement computer systems, including the mobilising solution, is principle 1 which is “We will go even further to redesign our services around the needs of the people using them. This means continuing to prioritise citizen and user needs above professional, organisational and technological silos.”

A key issue, following LDD principles, will be to ensure that the needs of service users (i.e. the general public making a 999 call) are fully met. Some engagement with such users may be appropriate as part of the project to replace the mobilising solution. For example, given the new ways (including via social media) that people now want to communicate, it will be important, in deploying a new mobilising solution, that it has the capacity to embrace new communication channels.

Also, as outlined above, it was not possible for Control staff to be fully engaged with the work to specify and procure the current Vision mobilising system. The Brigade wants to put Control staff front and centre of the project to replace the mobilising system. It can see that the principles of the LDD that put the user first can have huge benefits in terms of developing systems that get the very best from staff. It will do this by seconding Control staff to the project team and putting in place a user testing regime that allows for quick feedback and the agility to enhance and iterate solutions so that they are right for staff.

Mobilising project team

A project team will need to be established to deliver the new mobilising system. Some work will need to be carried out to establish the project and ensure that once funding is approved, the project is able to immediately move forward in 2020/21. This work will be undertaken as Phase 1 of the project, and this can be achieved using existing resources within the Brigade’s ICT Department, working closely with Control management and staff.

The resources needed for the project team will vary over time to support the different phases of the work:

• Phase 1 – Project enabling activity
• Phase 2 – Requirements gathering
• Phase 3 – Procurement, contract award, implementation
  

Report LFC-0261 sought agreement in principle to the project approach, noting that specific funding for Phase 2 (requirements gathering) and ultimately Phase 3 (procurement, contract award and implementation) will be sought via appropriate funding bids from ICT (the exact split between revenue and capital yet to be determined). The output of Phase 2 will be a completed statement of requirements (SOR) for a new mobilising system. The output of Phase 3 will ultimately be the implementation of a new mobilising system for the Brigade.

Phase 2 – Requirements gathering

Phase 2 of the project, which the LFC anticipates taking 18 months to complete, will require additional resources. Specifically, the FFC will require 1 x dedicated project manager, 1 x project support, 1 x business analyst, as well as financial provision to back fill 2 x Control officer posts who will be seconded to the project, initially for Phase 2. This will result in a 12-month staff cost of £205,000 and a one-off cost of £60,000 for the business analyst, for a total annual cost in 2020/21 of £265,000. There will then be further six-month staff cost of £103,000 in 2021/22, for a total cost £368,000 over an 18-month period.

Phase 3 – Procurement and implementation

Phase 3 of the project, which the LFC anticipates taking around 18–24 months to complete inclusive of all governance requirements, will also need additional resources. In particular, a dedicated procurement resource and test manager (for delivery/implementation) will be required. In addition, there may need to be funding to back-fill for ICT staff who may need to be seconded to the project to work on the software interfaces between the mobilising system and Brigade back-office systems during the delivery/implementation phase.

The additional costs for Phase 3 will be considered as part of the preparation for the 2021/22 (and future year) budgets and included in a future report seeking authorisation to begin Phase 3.

Collaboration opportunities

Under the Policing and Crime Act 2017, the Brigade has a duty to keep collaboration opportunities (with police and ambulance services) under review and, where it is in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness, to put those collaboration opportunities into practice. For the Brigade these collaboration opportunities would be with another blue light emergency services in London (i.e. the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and/or the London Ambulance Service (LAS), or collaboration with other fire and rescues services.

The MPS command and control system is some 35 years old and a project to replace this system it is currently underway and MPS are in the process of reviewing tenders. The MPS awarded a contract in January 2020 and are planning to go live in 2021. The Brigade received a briefing from the MPS on its implementation in May 2018 but, at this time, the opportunity to align the procurements was not possible. The MPS were at quite an advanced stage, having defined their requirements and not far away from initiating a procurement. Work had not even started on defining the Brigades requirements as there was still up to six years to run on the Brigade’s contract (with contract extensions).

The Brigade has spoken to the MPS about their recent procurement and are in the process of setting up a meeting with the relevant MPS staff. The Brigade will be keen to take on board any lessons learned or particular approaches that may be beneficial, from the Met recent procurement. In particular, the Brigade has tried to structure its approach in a similar manner, breaking the project into governance stages and seeking approval for each stage.

The London Ambulance Service (LAS) command and control system contract runs until the early 2020s and they are looking to procure a system nationally with all ambulance trust regions as part of an NHS project. For this reason, LAS would not be looking for collaboration opportunities outside the ambulance sector.

Collaboration is viewed as being potentially more efficient as some costs may be shared and, therefore, the economies of scale could be maximised. However, it is probably more likely that the adoption of protocols and standards such as Multi Agency Incident Transfer (MAIT)^[2], that allow emergency control rooms to be linked and share incidents in real time, will provide the best opportunities for operational collaboration.

Collaboration opportunities with other fire and rescue services will be examined as part of any new procurement, once the Brigade statement of requirements has been defined. Early notification of the project has already been flagged via the NFCC ICT Managers forum, that the CIO chairs.

LFC/Mayoral governance approvals

As outlined earlier, it is proposed that the project will be in three phases. Prior to Phase 1 being initiated, it was proposed to seek governance approvals (report LFC-0261) for the proposed approach to the replacement of the mobilising solution and to move to Phase 1; no additional staffing resources were required for Phase 1.

For each subsequent stage of the project, pre-approval will be sought for funding, up to an agreed value, to complete that stage. Report LFC-0261 requested the board to note that funding of £368,000 will be required to initiate and complete Phase 2 of the project (requirements gathering). The funding required for the final Phase 3, including the acceptance of tenders, will be determined toward the end of Phase 2. It is not possible to provide further information in relation to this at present.

There will be significant costs incurred by companies bidding for this work. Due to the complex and therefore time-consuming nature of the procurement, it is likely that some form of negotiated procurement approach may be required. As this will involve significant investment in terms of time and resources from potential suppliers, it will be necessary to move forward with a high degree of confidence that the Brigade will be able to award at the conclusion of the procurement.

The LFC believes that the proposed approach will allow the Brigade to move forward with a degree of confidence and yet still provide visibility to the Mayor’s Office and the Deputy Mayor for Fire and Resilience (via the Fire and Resilience Board), as the project progresses.

Conclusion

Taking lessons learned from previous mobilising solution procurements into account, there is a strong case to adopt an approach where the Brigade selects an existing ‘off-the-shelf’ solution or product and bending the business to fit with the way it works; not the system i.e. Option 2 above. This is an approach also endorsed by the MPS and adhered to as part of their project approach for mobilising system replacement.

In reality, this will mean that some functionality currently available in the Vision system, either may not be available in the new system or may exist in a different form. Whilst the challenge of adopting this approach should not be under-estimated (it is probable that some business processes, particularly in the Control Room may need to change), the benefits to the organisation overall are likely to outweigh any Brigade specific functionality loss.

It is the conclusion of work-to-date that the best approach for the Brigade would be to adopt Option 2. Participating in an exercise of early market engagement, under the guidance of procurement colleagues, will facilitate an understanding of the marketplace and greatly assist the Brigade to develop a SOR that is not Brigade specific. This fact should reduce cost, complexity and subsequently risk to the Brigade.

Having consulted with the MPS about their procurement, the LFB proposes to adopt a broadly similar approach to this project, by breaking the project into three key stages, and seeking governance approvals at the entry to each stage and funding up to an agreed limit.

The Public Sector Equality Duty applies to the London Fire Commissioner and Deputy mayor for Fire and Resilience when they make decisions. The Duty requires them to have regard to the need to:

a) Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other behaviour prohibited by the Act. In summary, the Act makes discrimination etc. on the grounds of a protected characteristic unlawful.
b) Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
c) Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not including tackling prejudice and promoting understanding.

The protected characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. The Act states that ‘marriage and civil partnership’ is not a relevant protected characteristic for (b) or (c) although it is relevant for (a).

Project staff will be working closely with the Inclusion Team on the equality aspects of this project. An equalities impact assessment will be carried out in respect of this project to make sure that any replacement mobilising solution will not have a disproportionately adverse effect on any persons with a protected characteristic. As part of the EIA, the Brigade will be working with its equality support groups to foster good relations between people who share, and do not share, protected characteristics. The development of a specification for a replacement mobilising solution will need to consider the needs of staff users with protected characteristics; this will be particularly important where any business process changes are needed if the Brigade were to adopt an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution. The Brigade will also need to consider the impact on those members of the public with protected characteristics that might need to engage with the Brigade to call for assistance and whether they would be affected by any change of mobilising solution. Where necessary, the Brigade will need to reflect any particular or special requirements in the SOR.

Workforce comments

Consultation with staff will be required, particularly if the principle of ‘bending the business’ rather the system is adopted as it may involve changing business processes. The intention will be to start the consultation process at the earliest opportunity. As outlined, the intention is to put Control staff at the front and centre of this project. Control staff will be seconded to work as part of the project team and the user testing will allow for quick feedback and the agility to enhance and iterate solutions so that they are right for our staff.
Sustainability implications

Any new procurement activity will need to be undertaken in line with the GLA Group Responsible Procurement policy. As part of delivery of this policy, the Greater London Authority group is currently in the process of affiliating with Electronics Watch, which requires the inclusion of additional terms and conditions for contracts with significant hardware purchases. The terms aim to improve the transparency of the supply chain and management of any non-compliance with labour standards identified with the support of Electronics Watch. Where hardware replacement of considerable value forms part of the requirement for any of the options proposed, additional terms covering ethical sourcing will need to be included in the tender or re-negotiation.

Report LFC-0296 sets out two options for the replacement of the mobilising system, with the recommendation that Option 2 for an ‘off the shelf’ option is agreed. Due to the change in approach proposed for this procurement the total cost of the replacement solution has been estimated within the range of £15,000,000 to £25,000,000 for a ten-year contract.

The replacement will be carried out in three phases, with the cost of Phase 1 of the project to be contained within existing ICT Department resources. At this stage approval is sought for revenue expenditure of up to £368,000 beginning in 2020/21 to deliver Phase 2 of the process. The report notes that additional funding will also be required for Phase 3 and funding will be sought for this at a later date. This will be considered as part of the budget process for future years once identified.

This expenditure is identified within the budget for 2020/21 and no further funding from the Greater London Authority is required.

The report asks that it be noted that funding of £368,000 will be required to deliver Phase 2 of the process, which is included within the LFC’s Budget estimates for 2020/21 . The report notes that additional funding will also be required for Phase 3 and funding will be sought for this at a later date. This will be considered as part of the budget process for future years once identified.

Under section 9 of the Policing and Crime Act 2017, the London Fire Commissioner (the "Commissioner") is established as a corporation sole with the Mayor appointing the occupant of that office. Under section 327D of the GLA Act 1999, as amended by the Policing and Crime Act 2017, the Mayor may issue to the Commissioner specific or general directions as to the manner in which the holder of that office is to exercise his or her functions.

By direction dated 1 April 2018, the Mayor set out those matters, for which the Commissioner would require the prior approval of either the Mayor or the Deputy Mayor for Fire and Resilience (the "Deputy Mayor").

Paragraph (b) of Part 2 of the said direction requires the Commissioner to seek the prior approval of the Deputy Mayor before “[a] commitment to expenditure (capital or revenue) of £150,000 or above as identified in accordance with normal accounting practices…”.

The Deputy Mayor's approval will be required for the Commissioner when it comes to any new procurement of a mobilising system.

The statutory basis for the actions proposed in this report is provided by section 7 (2)(c) of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, under which the Commissioner must make arrangements for dealing with calls for help and for summoning personnel for the purpose of extinguishing fires in its area and protecting life and property in the event of fires in its area.

Under section 2(1) of the Policing and Crime Act 2017, the Commissioner has a statutory duty to keep under consideration whether entering into a collaboration agreement with one or more other relevant emergency services in England could be in the interests of the efficiency or effectiveness of that service and those other services.

Furthermore, the proposed procurement of the mobilising system must be in compliance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 given that the value is well above OJEU threshold.