Having previously signed BT and IBM to ten-figure deals to support delivery of the troubled tech scheme, the department is now looking to engage with prospective providers of specialist phones
The Home Office is seeking to engage with potential suppliers that could provide more than £1bn’s worth of mobile devices through which frontline workers will be able to communicate via the UK’s new Emergency Services Network.
The project to deliver ESN – which has been subject to numerous significant delays, cost increases, and other complications – “has been assessing the devices market for several years and, following recent developments on the ESN programme, is now in a position to invite all interested suppliers to participate” in a market-engagement exercise, according to a newly published procurement notice.
Beginning next week and for period of three weeks thereafter, the Home Office is inviting prospective providers to engage with the department’s commercial teams via activities including a webinar to be held around the middle of next month. During this event, officials “will brief registered suppliers on forthcoming tender activity and timelines as well as desired procurement outcomes and the future framework [and] suppliers will have the opportunity to ask written questions during the webinar or afterwards… [which] will be shared on an anonymised basis”.
The overall engagement initiative is intended to provide “the opportunity to review and respond to the detailed technical and service requirements for each of up to six end user device categories” specified by the Home Office.
Alongside devices fitted in emergency services vehicles, there are five categories of handheld mobile devices: rugged devices to connect to ESN; rugged devices that connect to both ESN and legacy Tetra radio services; non-rugged devices; “intrinsically safe” devices; and featurephones – a classification typically applied to phones with fewer features than a modern smartphone, but more functionality than a basic mobile phone.
After consideration of the findings of the engagement, the Home Office plans to issue a tender opening bidding for a place on the framework around early November.
The intention is that an agreement with the chosen suppliers will come into effect in summer 2026 and last for an initial term of four years – plus potential extensions of up to four further years, which would take the framework’s end date to 2034.
The arrangement is expected to be worth £1.11bn to the featured firms.
Before taking part in the engagement exercises and the subsequent procurement, potential bidders are advised that the Home Office will demand their discretion, as well requiring them to use government’s new buying platform.
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“Signature of a mutual non-disclosure agreement will be needed before participation,” the newly published notice says. “If a relevant NDA is not in place, please request an NDA document when registering interest.”
It adds: “Following this market engagement, in order to participate in any subsequent procurement, it will be mandatory for interested suppliers to register on the new Central Digital Platform which is part of the enhanced Find a Tender Service. This only needs to be done once, and so suppliers are advised to do this at their earliest convenience.”
The device deal is the third of a trio of £1bn-plus engagements being put in place to support the implementation of ESN – which is intended to provide police, ambulance and fire crews across the UK with updated communications infrastructure, including 4G and 5G connections.
In August 2024, the Home Office signed a potential £2.22bn agreement with BT and its subsidiary EE to provide the connectivity services that will support the operation in ESN.
About five months after this contract was signed, a £1.63bn deal was awarded to IBM. The tech firm – supported by device-maker Samsung, as well as other specialist partners including Ericsson, Frequentis, Exponential-E and Palo Alto Networks – has been contracted to deliver the design and construction and construction of ESN, installation of core computing infrastructure and software, and device-management and other support services.
The most recently available estimate for the overall delivery cost of ESN – from March 2024 – is about £11.3bn. This figure has changed greatly over the years, however – as has the timeline for implementation.
The current scheduled completion date of 2029 is a decade later than originally planned, while total costs have doubled from initial projections.
The programme has also been dogged by legal challenges between government and Motorola Solutions – which was axed from the ESN scheme in early 2023, as exclusively revealed by PublicTechnology.
This situation is further complicated by the fact that Motorola remains the provider of the incumbent Airwave network that – six years and counting since ESN was initially hoped to be fully operational – is still relied upon for emergency services communications.
Regulators have previously ruled that the tech firm was overcharging by hundreds of millions of pounds for the provision of these services. Price controls were imposed as a result.
