Labour's FiReControl project 'wasted £469m' with poor IT project management

The last Labour government wasted nearly £500m of taxpayers' money on the now defunct FiReControl project, according to a damning report from the Public Accounts Committee  (PAC).

FiReControl was run by the Department for Communities and Local Government, and aimed to consolidate 46 regional fire and rescue service control centres into nine interlinked locations to improve resilience and response capabilities.

However, Margaret Hodge, chairwoman of the PAC, claimed that the project was a "complete failure", and that a lack of clear strategy or leadership led to huge financial waste.

"The project was rushed without proper understanding of the costs or risks. The leadership relied far too much on external consultants, and frequent departures of senior staff contributed to weak management and oversight," she said.

"The taxpayer has lost nearly £500m, and eight of the completed regional control centres remain as empty and costly white elephants."

The report also claimed that a large portion of the blame lay with the failure of the Labour government properly to manage the IT aspect in the contract requirements and tendering process.

"The contract to implement a national IT system linking the control centres was not awarded until a full three years after the project started," she said.

"The contract itself was poorly designed and awarded to a company without relevant experience [European Air and Defence Systems, now Cassidian]. The computer system was simply never delivered."

Hodge also criticised the Labour government for failing to put the most basic of clauses in the contract and not keeping a tighter rein on the company that won the tender for the IT systems.

"The poorly designed IT contract lacked early milestones or mechanisms to effectively manage prime or sub-contractor performance," the report said.

"The department allowed the contractor to deviate from the agreed approach and, when problems did emerge, did not take timely corrective action."

FiReControl was shelved in December 2010, but the government is proposing to spend a further £84.8m to salvage some of the control centres. However, the PAC questioned how this would help achieve the intended objectives.

"We are unclear how national resilience will be delivered, given that collaboration between local services is not guaranteed, and how the expenditure of a further £84.8m will deliver value for money," the report added.

The Labour government undertook many sweeping, large-scale IT-based projects during its time in power that cost the taxpayer billions of pounds, often without any clear benefits, a situation the coalition has sought to redress.