“We need to work out what is mission-critical and what is nice to have. It might be nice to have to be able to upload a traffic offence quite quickly, but that is not mission-critical. But some things really are mission-critical.”

And she challenged the innovators in the room to contribute their expertise to the project. “We’re very interested in making sure that this program doesn’t just deliver the same old, same old; we want to make sure that our users have access to useful technology. We know that TETRA has done a fantastic job in meeting the needs for voice and narrowband data, delivered through Airwave. LTE looks like it might be really, really good at data and it might one day be doing voice, but we do need to see some major changes to the standards.

“But have we missed something? We would like to know. We won’t specify what technology is used; we will be basing our specifications on outputs. But what we do want to do is understand the benefits and risks of technology that is proposed by people when they come to bid.

“We believe that even with the current network, there may be opportunities to add supplementary coverage installations and suchlike – take-it-with-you coverage, that sort of thing. Should we be looking at white-space, Wi-Fi, satellite? What have we missed? We are interested to hear that kind of thing from industry.”

In a discussion session afterwards, the Home Office speakers were asked about their vision of future possibilities. “We often see in requirements analysis that users frame their requirements on their limited understanding of what the technology is capable of”, said the questioner. “So whilst you’re asking for technology ideas, are you also going to your user base to find out what their vision is, rather than just their requirements based on today’s technology?”

“We are looking for their future operating model”, answered Cate Walton. “Because, as you say, they are focused very much on now, we will be looking to demonstrate what might be the art of the possible so that they can adapt their views.”