Police told to send text messages because it is too expensive to speak on their radios

On duty: But officers are being told not to use their radios to report routine matters

Police officers are being ordered to send texts rather than speak on their radios because of the sums charged by the firm that owns the police communications network.

While chief constables face unprecedented cutbacks, the company that operates the system on which all the emergency services communicate has seen a massive rise in profits. Last year Airwave Solutions’ profit margin outstripped even that of mobile-phone giant Vodafone.

Airwave’s pre-tax profit was £170 million, a 26 per cent increase on the previous 12 months. It represents an eye-watering return of 45 per cent on the company’s £380 million turnover.

The company’s charges are said to be putting a severe strain on police budgets. Officers in one rural force have been told that a penalty charge of up to £2 a second is imposed as soon as the number of calls they make goes over a pre-arranged limit.

According to Dorset Police Federation chairman Clive Chamberlain, the punitive levy has led to a series of cost-cutting measures. ‘Airwave is a very expensive system which was forced upon the police service by the Government,’ he said.

‘It was imperative to have a secure communications system. But it has come at a very high price. The advice we’re being given from the top is to send texts as much as possible because it’s going to cost a lot less money.

‘There have been a series of briefings at which a senior officer has said it costs Dorset £2 a second whenever we go over the limit. We are being told that texting more has the potential to save tens of thousands of pounds because it costs only 4p to send 1,000 texts.’

Dorset Police declined to confirm or deny the £2-a-second figure. A spokesman said: ‘The monthly charges include a fixed price for provision of the service, including a set volume of traffic, together with a variable charge that applies if the force exceeds its set monthly traffic volume.’

Airwave refused to discuss the details of its charging structure but claimed the £2-a-second calculation was ‘misleading and inaccurate’. However, a spokesman said: ‘We do charge a usage tariff, but only for excess usage over agreed contracted levels.’

No national figures are collated for the cost of Airwave to the police service as a whole, according to the Home Office. But The Mail on Sunday has discovered that Dorset’s bill last year was £612,000, Greater Manchester’s £699,000 and North Wales’s £619,000.

The country’s biggest force, the Metropolitan Police, and a number of others said they could not reveal how much they paid because the information was commercially sensitive.



Now, in an attempt to reduce the spiralling cost, officers from forces all over Britain are being trained how to text because it is cheaper.

It means police out on patrol or responding to an incident are under orders to keep in touch with their colleagues in the control room not by talking to them but by pressing buttons.

Last night former police commanders condemned the move and said it could compromise the safety of front-line officers and the public. The network is used by every police force, fire brigade and ambulance trust in the country.

Police officers have been given a set of 16 numerical codes that correspond to buttons on their handset. By inputting the correct combination of digits, they can report their location and whether they are issuing a warrant, making an arrest, on a meal break or returning to base. The information is automatically fed into the control room computer.

In an emergency, they can summon help in the normal way. But if they are involved in a routine procedure, they have been told to use the messaging facility instead.

An investigation by The Mail on Sunday found that forces across Britain have sent their staff on texting training courses. They include North Wales, Nottinghamshire, Cheshire, North Yorkshire, Kent, Hertfordshire, Durham, Hampshire, Norfolk, Dorset and Dyfed-Powys.

But critics say ‘status messaging’, as it is known, is a time-wasting procedure that will distract officers and make them less alert to potential danger.

Former Scotland Yard Flying Squad commander John O’Connor said: ‘It is going to impact on their safety and operational efficiency. How can they be sure their text is going to be picked up so colleagues know their location? If you are talking to a colleague, they know exactly where you are and what you’re doing.

‘This is another layer of red tape which is being imposed in order to save an unquantifiable amount of money. Chief constables should stand up and say they are not going to accept it.’

Former Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said: ‘If officers are trying to push buttons they won’t be looking to see what is going on around them and to that extent it’s risky.

‘When they were introducing the system, it took a large chunk of the Met’s budget and there were all sorts of problems. At the beginning it didn’t even work inside buildings and we had to put in extra transmitters which involved a lot of extra cost.

‘I don’t remember being given a choice by the Home Office. We were told, “This is the system you are getting.”’

Most police forces have contracts with Airwave based on expected usage. But if officers make more calls than allowed for in the agreement, a higher tariff is applied.

Police sources say the unpredictable nature of their work means some forces can easily exceed their limit, involving them in huge extra expense.

One officer said: ‘The force’s financial controller will make a usage prediction. But then there’s a big incident and we’re radioing in all the time. That’s when the problems start.’

Charges are calculated in different ways around the country and contracts are supposed to reflect local needs. But Greater Manchester said Airwave measured radio usage during the busiest hour of every day during a 90-day period. It then worked out an average figure and billed the force accordingly.

Airwave Solutions is owned by Australian investment bank Macquarie, which bought it from mobile phone firm O2 three years ago.

The infrastructure roll-out began in 2000 after Airwave’s original owner BT won a £2.5 billion Government contract to provide a secure digital radio service for the emergency services to replace the old analogue network.

Lucrative: The company that operates the system use by emergency services has seen a massive rise in profits

Critics claimed the deal had been done without the contract being put out to tender. Among those who questioned the way it had been handled was Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne – then an MEP.

He tabled a question in the European Parliament in 2004, asking Brussels officials to check whether the British Government had obeyed the rules when awarding the contract.

When BT was split up, responsibility for Airwave passed to O2, which was by then a separate company.

Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Blair of Boughton faced embarrassing questions after he attended an England rugby match at Twickenham as a guest of O2 while he was still running the force four years ago. Lord Blair, who was in a private VIP box, was criticised by MPs for accepting hospitality from a company with direct commercial links to the Met.

Tony Blair’s former foreign policy chief Sir Stephen Wall is paid £40,000 a year as a non-executive director of Airwave Solutions, and is also on the advisory panel of one of Macquarie’s European investment funds. In contrast to Airwave’s pre-tax profit margin of just under 45 per cent last year, mighty Vodafone was several points behind at 32.6 per cent.

A financial analyst said: ‘Airwave is an exceptionally profitable company by any standards.’

A spokesman for Nottinghamshire Police, one of the forces sending officers on texting courses, said: ‘We are doing a series of briefings for officers around the use of status messaging as opposed to talk time. It frees up air time for ongoing incidents and reduces costs.’

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We give police forces a budget. It is up to them how they spend it.’

A spokesman for Airwave Solutions said: ‘Not all police forces are realising the full benefits of the Airwave service. Officers and control-room staff often use only the basic radio functions. By using it to the full extent, they can enjoy a raft of additional efficiency benefits.’

The company’s UK services director, David Sangster, denied that charges were too high. He said: ‘As you would expect in any Government contract, there are in-built checks and balances, such as regular audits.’



£700k Chilterns home of police radio firm’s boss

Radio head: Richard Bobbett

The chief executive of Airwave Solutions, which owns the police radio network, is Richard Bobbett, a rugby enthusiast who lives with his wife Deborah and their two children in a £700,000 house in the Chilterns in Buckinghamshire.

Mr Bobbett, 47, joined Airwave in 2001 and was appointed chief executive in 2006.

He claims to have rolled out the emergency services’ communications network nationwide ‘ahead of schedule and on budget’.

But many police officers say the network did not work properly at first and that problems persist in coverage and reliability.

Despite the complaints, Airwave recently won another important Government contract.

It is being paid £39 million to build a dedicated network for Olympic officials at the 2012 London Games.

Mr Bobbett’s main hobby is playing rugby for his local club, Amersham & Chiltern.

In response to this article, David Sangster, UK Services Director, Airwave Solutions writes:

You were misleading to suggest that using police radios can cost £2 a second. Charges include a variable charge if the force exceeds its set monthly traffic volume. But Dorset Police stated that, annually, each transmission costs less than 1.5 (one and a half) pence.

Our system also offers status messaging which enables police to update their control rooms at the push of a single button. It is efficient and popular with officers.

Force hires luxury hospitality suite . . . to tell staff whether they will lose jobs

A police force facing sweeping budget cuts has spent thousands of pounds hiring a luxury hospitality suite to explain to staff how it plans to save money.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Chief Constable Peter Fahy will address 1,900 civilian workers whose jobs are under threat because of Government cuts.

The all-day meeting is being held on Tuesday at Bolton Wanderers Football Club’s Reebok Stadium, ‘one of the most impressive event settings in the North West’.

The club’s website says the 2,000-square-metre ‘premiere’ suite ‘provides the WOW factor for any guest entering’.

'Wow factor': The suite at the Reebok Stadium where Greater Manchester Police staff will learn their fate

GMP has previously warned that it was preparing to cut 3,100 positions and hundreds are expected to be told whether they are losing their jobs in one-to-one meetings after Mr Fahy’s address.

Normally the suite would cost more than £20,000 to hire for the day, but it is understood GMP booked it at a discounted rate.

Staff reacted with bemusement to the decision to stage the meeting at the Reebok, which is more than 20 miles away from GMP’s headquarters. A source said: ‘This meeting is going to be bad news, it certainly doesn’t make it any better because it’s delivered somewhere swanky.

‘No doubt the chief constable will talk about the “big picture”, but it’s hard for any of us to care when our jobs are on the line.’

Others pointed out that the GMP-owned Hough End conference centre and Sedgley Park training facility, both in Manchester, could have been used for free.

Assistant Chief Officer Lynne Potts said: ‘We needed a venue that would allow us to deliver the information in as condensed a timeframe as possible. The Reebok Stadium was the only place we could find with the required capacity.’