FireControl IT contracts reach £202.3m

Bob Neill said in a parliamentary written answer that his department's contract with EADS to develop IT for FireControl is worth £200m, while contracts with various other vendors for IT goods and services amounts to £2.3m. He also told Conservative MP Gordon Henderson on 22 July 2010 that the FireControl project is "over budget and behind schedule". "The new government is committed to ensuring value for money for the taxpayer improving resilience and stopping the forced regionalisation of the fire service," he added. The top four IT suppliers that Communities and Local Government has spent the most with, excluding EADS, are: £647,425 with Innogistic; £429,730 with Intelligent Addressing; £354,580 with Fujitsu Services; and £335,368 with Connectology Network. FireControl is part of a £1bn government project to reduce the number of fire service control rooms from more than 40 to nine networked regional control centres.