The Home Office has relaunched its tender process for the supply of Emergency Services Network (ESN) devices, accessories and services, worth up to £150m.

The department has published a second prior information notice following market engagement on its original proposals.

ESN is being introduced to provide integrated critical voice and broadband data services for the three emergency services.

The tender, published yesterday, said: “Market engagement and evolution of the ESN programme since the publication of the notice to the market in March 2016 has led to a re-assessment of the potential procurement options for ESN devices.

“We now wish to share our findings with the market by way of this revised prior information notice, including related material such as draft user requirements that reflect our latest thinking in respect of the potential procurement approaches for ESN devices.”

The department is proposing a dynamic purchasing system (DPS) which will allow suppliers to bid for and supply ESN approved devices accessories and services under the following categories:

• Handheld devices — standard, ruggedized, single and dual mode LTE/TETRA devices;
• Specialist — direct device to device communications;
• Active accessories — wireless, wired and batteries;
• Passive accessories — cases and device carriage on clothing;
• Potentially vehicle devices — vehicle (4+wheels) ESN modems, devices and gateway devices; vehicle (2 wheels) ESN devices and waterborne ESN devices;
• Vehicle accessories;
• Potentially Vehicle Installation design and implementation;
• Potentially managed services; and
• Unified — any combination of the other categories

The Home Office estimated that 300,000 devices will be needed to make the transition from its current Airwave service, which ESN is replacing.

The first of 12 regional transitions to the ESN is planned for September 2017, with the process expected to take up to 27 months.

The estimated value of the four year DPS is between £30m and £150m.

The ESN Devices project team plans to host supplier events and market sounding meetings in the lead up to the release of a tender.

The first main contract for the ESN Delivery Partner was awarded to Kellogg Brown & Root Limited (KBR).

In December 2015, the user services and mobile services contracts were awarded to Motorola Solutions and EE Limited, respectively.