Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure police and fire emergency control room computer systems have effective back-ups and safeguards to prevent control room staff from having to use paper based systems for 999 calls.

Police and Fire and Rescue services have tried and tested business continuity arrangements for the loss of control room functionality. This may include fall-back to secondary locations or remote call handling to another Police Force or Fire and Rescue Service.

Where necessary the local Business Continuity Plans may necessitate additional on-call staff or reverting to paper based system to maintain critical functionality.