The Scottish Government’s £40million communications system for fire brigades has crashed – just weeks after officials took legal action to make its use compulsory.
Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing took unprecedented steps last month to make sure all fire service vehicles were equipped with Firelink radios, despite resistance from senior officers in Grampian.
The Press and Journal can now reveal that the new system has already failed because of a software problem – leaving all eight brigades in Scotland on a backup network last night.
The digital radios are the main link between control centres and the fire engines and cars sent to tackle blazes and road accidents around the country.
The technology was developed after the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist attacks in New York and London, when mobile phone networks went down.
They allow all emergency services to communicate directly with each other, no matter what the location.
However, at 3.30pm on Wednesday, all of Scotland’s fire and rescue services, including Grampian, Highlands and Islands and Tayside, were cut off from the network.
Technicians from Airwave – the communications firm behind Firelink – have been working since then to try to fix the fault.
It was five hours before some brigades were connected to the back-up systems on Wednesday.
A fire service source, who is not being named to protect his job, said: “Interestingly, our mobile phones – which were much criticised by civil servants – were the only thing that kept the service going at the height of this latest crisis.
“This is a catastrophic failure of what we’ve been told is a resilient radio system on which the safety of Scotland depends. It is a very serious matter and I think politicians and the people have a legitimate right to know about what has happened.”
It is understood a crisis meeting was held between fire chiefs, the government and other emergency services as technicians battled to get brigades on to the back-up network.
Crews in Dumfries and Galloway and Lothian and Borders were able to connect up quickly but the other six brigades had to wait until 7.30pm to get on to the substitute network.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “All services have full voice and data capability and currently using back-up systems pending some technical checks. Once complete, all will move back to the main system.
“This is the most advanced communications system in the UK and, unlike many older systems, Airwave is designed to be resilient, with highly effective back-up systems in place for any eventuality.
“As such, the advanced back-up system kicked in, ensuring that communications and operational capacity were maintained.”
A spokeswoman for Airwave said: “On Wednesday, a technical issue within the Airwave infrastructure resulted in some of our services being unavailable.
“An Airwave incident team has been working closely with our customers to restore the full service as soon as possible.”
It is understood that a number of Strathclyde Police control rooms have also been affected by the system failure.
Opposition politicians reacted angrily last month when it emerged that Mr Ewing had taken legal action to adjust the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005.
The minister said he had been left with no choice but to force Grampian Fire and Rescue Service to fit the system so it fell in line with Scotland’s seven other brigades, ensuring the entire country was covered by the new communications network.
Grampian’s chief fire officer, David Dalziel, had blocked installation of the system in the 24 private cars of senior managers on the grounds that the equipment is not hands-free.
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine MSP Mike Rumbles said news of the breakdown was embarrassing for the government – and once again called for Mr Ewing to back down over the row.
The Liberal Democrat said: “As far as operational matters are concerned, fire chiefs know what they are talking about and ministers should not interfere and force through their own will.”
North East Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone said: “Obviously this is embarrassing for the minister since he pushed so hard for Firelink.
“I hope the minister will now take the time to reflect on some of the alternatives put to him and whether his confidence was misplaced.”