PROVISION OF MULTI AGENCY INCIDENT TRANSFER (MAIT)

Award outcome

Description

Fire control personnel currently rely on using telephone, radio, and email to share incident related information between other agencies, including other fire control rooms. This can be time consuming and reduces the capacity of fire control personnel to manage further calls. Interim solutions have since been implemented, including national and regional talk groups that aid the sharing of incident information and situational awareness, and emergency call distribution plans (Operation Willow Beck) that help reduce call waiting times during periods of increased demand. While these methods have been successful, there remains a risk of a delay in incident information being relayed between emergency control rooms which the implementation of MAIT will help to mitigate further. The MAIT solution is an electronic method of communication, offering a way for emergency services to pass incident details securely and accurately, and to standardise and automate the flow of information. The aim is to enable interoperability between different systems and to facilitate information exchange between fire control rooms and other agencies. This will mean that relevant information is directed to the correct stakeholders in a timely and secure manner. The adoption of MAIT will assist fire and rescue services in meeting recommendation 33.16 and access to the MAIT Hub will support fire and rescue services in meeting recommendation 33.31 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 report. Following recommendations from the Grenfell Inquiry, the Fire Sector has sourced a supplier to provide connections to the Multi Agency Incident Transfer (MAIT) hub, with a messaging solution to allow the sharing of critical incident information between blue light control rooms and other agencies.The resultant contract shall provide for both replacement and new installations of MAIT hub and spoke solutions for all 33 English Fire and Rescue Services (FRS) Control Rooms.The MAIT Hub allows agencies to pass information quickly and securely without the need to manage a complex set of point-to-point network connections. MAIT is an open standards schema using extensible markup language (XML) which allows data to be transferred in a common and recognisable way between systems. The MAIT Hub allows agencies to pass information quickly and securely without the need to manage a complex set of point-to-point network connections. This contract was awarded through the National Fire Chiefs Council Framework Agreement C22056.

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