Archived decisions

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL MEETING- 20 FEBRUARY, 2003

REPORT OF THE

HAMPSHIRE POLICE AUTHORITY

FAILURE OF BRITISH TELECOM SYSTEM ON 25 APRIL, 2002

1. The Authority has received a presentation from representatives of OFTEL, the regulatory authority for the telecommunications industry, and BT, on the investigation undertaken by OFTEL into the failure of the BT system in the Southampton area on 25 April, 2002 resulting in the loss of service to over 400,000 BT customers and the Police Command and Control Centre at Netley.

2. The OFTEL representative set the failure into context and indicated that BT's network hosted approximately 28 million telephone lines and handled approximately 40 million 999 calls per annum of which BT answered 80%. He added that 999 calls were answered at many sites in the United Kingdom and were always treated as priority. He confirmed that approximately 432,000 customers had been affected mostly within Hampshire, but also in parts of South Wiltshire for varying periods between 6.30 p.m and 3.55 a.m. Of these, 80% had been restored by midnight with the remaining customers being restored to service over the next four hours.

3. Members learned that the cause of the failure had occurred to equipment in a Southampton building at approximately 5.30 p.m but that the core 999 service had continued to function with calls being diverted to Dorset Police once it had been realised that calls to the Hampshire Control room could not be connected. OFTEL was satisfied that BT had managed the situation professionally as soon as the failure had been detected and had attached a high priority to restoring the system. The network had been monitored closely to ensure stability and replacement equipment had been brought. In addition, the capacity of the power supply equipment had been increased for added resilience. Following restoration the causes of the failure and consequential impact and issues had been thoroughly investigated with areas for improvement and actions to be taken identified. OFTEL had been kept fully informed during this process.

4. The Authority was informed that, as a result of the failure in April, 2002, BT had reviewed its top 250 sites to ensure that the appropriate equipment was functioning correctly, including the Southampton site. In addition, a further 1,300 sites had been checked and, where appropriate, routine surveillance upgraded. At the same time, all 300 emergency control rooms were being reviewed for resilience with Hampshire having already been completed. Additional staff had been trained within BT to identify issues associated with the delivery of resilience to emergency control rooms.

5. The Authority was assured that both the regulator and the major operators treated the 999 service as the highest priority and were working with the emergency authorities to improve all aspects of the service. In this respect, the Authority acknowledged that it was fortunate to have its Deputy Chief Constable and a member of his staff working at a national level to implement change. In addition, Hampshire had a state of the art control room at Netley which was equipped with all the technology that would enable the Force to take advantage of new advances with minimal change, including mobile phone location which now accounted for more than 50% of 999 calls, and which would lead to reduced response times and greater efficiency.

6. The Authority was informed that knowledge about the incident would be shared with other operators and that lessons learned would also be passed on to the National 999 Liaison Committee which was chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister in order that they could be enshrined in the Code of Practice for the 999 service. Members were also reassured that an additional layer of resilience had been provided to the Hampshire Force to give added protection to the system over and above that which had been provided at the time of the failure.

7. In conclusion, Members mindful of the damage which had occurred to the efforts made by both the Authority and the Constabulary to increase public confidence and policing, asked OFTEL and BT that any press releases issued locally following their presentation to the Authority should be agreed by the Constabulary and concentrate on reassurance rather than technical matters.

4IR130203