National security concerns were a key theme of the Queen’s Speech last week, but a Computing investigation reveals major gaps in the resilience of the police communications network.

The importance of communications in reducing response times and co-ordinating emergency services in the event of national disasters was re-emphasised by the official report on the 2005 London bombings.

But continuity planning for Airwave does not meet the government’s own recommendations, and in the event of a major loss of mains electricity police communications would survive for only a few hours before backup batteries ran out.

‘There is an obvious concern about the capacity of the blue-light services to communicate in a disaster incident, and five hours of backup power is plainly wholly inadequate,’ said a Whitehall security consultant.

The Police IT Organisation (Pito), which specified and procured the Airwave service, says plans for the provision of backup power are not its concern.

‘The Airwave contract specifies a level of service availability to be maintained across the network. How this availability is achieved is the responsibility of the service provider,’ said Pito’s initial response to Computing enquiries.

Only repeated requests under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act elicited the admission that, typically, backup power supplies for Airwave will last ‘up to five hours’, and Pito remains adamant that responsibility for such planning lies with supplier O2.

‘The assurance mechanism in place for Airwave does not specify particular scenarios for loss of service,’ says Pito’s FoI response.

But the government’s own civil contingencies guidelines do specify particular scenarios, including ‘loss of mains electricity supply for up to three days locally or 24 hours regionally’.

Both Pito and O2 are keen to emphasise Airwave’s resilience:

* The network’s ‘key nodes’ are all equipped with standby generators to ensure an uninterrupted power supply.

* Loss of power to one of the network’s 3,000 local base stations will affect only officers in the vicinity, and some extra coverage may even be available from neighbouring areas.

* Field repair teams carry personal generators able to power a base station.

* The National Fallback Service that O2 is building replicates Airwave’s entire switching system.

But switches are reliant on electricity supply.

And generators at key nodes will be of little use in a major regional power loss – such as that posited by the Cabinet Office guidelines – because it is the base stations that broadcast signals to and from handsets. Once the base station batteries run out, officers will be unable to communicate, regardless of power to the network’s key nodes.

Field personnel delivering generators is not a practical solution in a wide-scale crisis.

‘The system is designed to be resilient against localised failures but not against a regional, let alone national, power failure,’ said a network expert.

A major upgrade, under which standby power will be provided to about 35 per cent of base stations, is under way, but the programme will not be completed until the end of next year.

‘I am very surprised that the requirements placed by the Home Office on the network provider do not reflect the Cabinet Office guidelines which industry is asked to follow,’ said Jim Norton, senior policy adviser at the Institute of Directors.

Major power cuts are neither rare nor restricted to disasters and terrorist attacks.

Earlier this month millions of people across Europe were affected when German power company E.ON turned off a power cable in north-west Germany and overloaded its grid. In October more than 200,000 people across the north-east US and Canada were without power because of a storm. And parts of Central London were blacked out this summer because of faults in the distribution network.

‘The government guidelines are quite correct and should be used by any company looking at its own contingency planning,’ said Philip Virgo, strategic adviser to user group the Institute for the Management of Information Systems.

‘It is particularly important that they are followed in the public sector.

‘For organisations to be assuming they can get away with less is particularly worrying, given that even simple accidents can cause loss of power.’

What is Airwave?

* Airwave is the national voice and data radio network provided by supplier O2.

* Rollout to UK police forces was completed in March 2005 and the network has more than 150,000 police users.

* The Police IT Organisation signed the 19-year, £2.9bn contract with O2 in 2000.

* Airwave is also being rolled out to the ambulance and fire services, following deals signed in July 2005 and March 2006 respectively. Both are due to be completed by the middle of 2009.