- Openreach is withdrawing the analogue PSTN through an all-IP migration the company expects to complete in 2027.
- The Crown Commercial Service operates public sector procurement agreements that include telecommunications and network services frameworks.
- Local authorities commonly run telecare and warden-call services that rely on analogue lines and need migration planning.
- Ofcom requires communications providers to identify and protect customers who depend on their landline, including telecare users served by councils.
- Digital voice lines do not work in a power cut without battery back-up, so safety-critical public services need a resilience strategy.
Public bodies must audit every analogue line, prioritise telecare and safety systems, procure replacement digital services through Crown Commercial Service frameworks, and plan power resilience before the all-IP migration completes in 2027.
Last reviewed: June 2026
Why the public sector faces a complex migration
Few organisations rely on the analogue network in as many ways as a local authority. A single council may run housing telecare, sheltered-housing warden-call, lift emergency phones, traffic-signal links, CCTV backhaul, contact-centre lines and remote site alarms, many of them installed over years on copper PSTN connections. As Openreach withdraws that network through an all-IP migration it expects to complete in 2027, every one of those services needs to be found, assessed and moved to internet protocol or an alternative.
What makes the position harder than in a private business is the way responsibility is spread. The lines a council depends on are often held across many separate contracts, sites and departments, some inherited through reorganisation or transferred housing stock, and the original installer of an alarm or telecare unit may no longer hold the maintenance contract. A line carrying a critical signalling path can therefore be invisible on a central asset register until it stops working. Building a single authoritative inventory is consequently both the first task and the hardest, because it cuts across organisational boundaries that have grown up over decades.
The scale and the public-safety dimension make this different from a typical office move. Telecare in particular protects residents who depend on a pendant or warden-call unit to summon help, and Ofcom requires communications providers to identify and protect customers who rely on their landline. A council acting as a telecare provider therefore carries a duty of care alongside its procurement task, and cannot treat the switch-off purely as an IT refresh.
What local councils must do
The first obligation is visibility. A public body should build a complete inventory of analogue lines and the systems each one serves, then classify them by risk. Telecare, lift telephones and any line carrying an emergency or safety function rank highest, because a silent failure could leave a vulnerable resident or a trapped lift passenger without help. Lift emergency communication is expected to remain reliable under the lift standard BS EN 81-28, which the migration plan must respect.
Risk classification is more than a label. For each high-risk line a council should record what the line does, which residents or assets depend on it, how a failure would first become visible, and what the fallback is while a replacement is fitted. This converts a list into an operational plan, because it tells the team which migrations must be witnessed and tested rather than simply scheduled. For telecare specifically, the council should know whether each unit dials a monitoring centre using older analogue signalling that may not pass cleanly over digital voice, since that determines whether the unit can be reconfigured or must be replaced outright.
Next comes engagement with current and prospective suppliers. The council should ask each maintenance and telecare contractor whether equipment is digital-ready, and ask its communications providers when the relevant exchanges will migrate. Where the council provides telecare to residents, it should coordinate with those residents and any partner providers so that no one loses cover during the change. Documenting the audit, the risk ranking and the migration dates gives elected members and auditors a clear assurance trail.
Public sector PSTN switch-off migration considerations
The table summarises the main service categories a public body should review and the kind of action each typically needs.
| Service category | Risk level | Typical action |
|---|---|---|
| Resident telecare and warden-call | High | Replace analogue units, confirm power resilience |
| Lift emergency telephones | High | Upgrade dialler, keep BS EN 81-28 link reliable |
| CCTV and traffic-signal links | Medium | Re-provision over IP connectivity |
| Contact-centre and office lines | Medium | Migrate to hosted VoIP, port numbers |
| Remote site alarms and meters | Medium | Confirm signalling path, consider mobile fallback |
The Crown Commercial Service telecoms framework
Public bodies do not have to run a full bespoke tender for every telecoms requirement. The Crown Commercial Service operates national procurement agreements that include telecommunications and network services, giving councils, central-government departments and wider public sector buyers a compliant route to call off services without re-running the full competition. Using an established framework can shorten timelines and provide pre-agreed terms, which matters when many bodies are migrating in the same window before 2027.
Through these agreements a public body can procure connectivity, hosted voice and managed network services from suppliers that have already met the framework's qualification standards. The buyer still defines its own requirements, runs any further competition the framework allows, and confirms value for money. For migration specifically, the framework route lets a council align its replacement digital voice and connectivity contracts with the timetable for retiring its analogue lines.
The framework route also helps with the connectivity that underpins everything else. Digital voice, IP-based CCTV and re-provisioned alarm signalling all depend on a sufficient and resilient data connection, so a council often needs to procure or upgrade access circuits at the same time as the voice service. Specifying these together under one framework call-off, rather than as disconnected purchases, reduces the risk of a voice contract going live before the connectivity that carries it is ready, which is a common cause of delay in large multi-site migrations.
How public sector bodies access support and manage procurement
Beyond the procurement frameworks, public bodies should draw on the published guidance for the switch-off. GOV.UK sets out the national position on retiring the PSTN, and Ofcom provides the regulatory expectations on protecting customers who rely on their landline. A council combining these sources can build a migration programme that is both compliant and defensible: a documented inventory, a risk-based priority order, a procurement route through an established framework, and a resilience plan for power cuts.
Procurement governance matters because public spending is scrutinised. A body should record why it chose a particular framework or supplier, how it tested value for money, and how it protected service continuity for residents. Engaging internal audit early, briefing elected members on the safety dimension, and keeping a clear paper trail all reduce the chance of a challenge later. With the all-IP migration expected to complete in 2027, starting the programme in good time leaves room to test replacements before the analogue service is withdrawn rather than after.
Building the migration timeline and resilience plan
A defensible programme has a sequence as well as a budget. Because Openreach's published timeline points to completion in 2027 rather than to a single fixed calendar day for every exchange, a council should treat the date as a backstop and work back from it, scheduling the highest-risk telecare and lift migrations first so there is time to witness testing and to correct any unit that fails on the new service. Lower-risk office and contact-centre lines can follow once the safety-critical work is proven, which also smooths the demand on internal teams and contractors who would otherwise be asked to do everything at once.
Resilience deserves its own thread within the plan. Because a digital voice line and the broadband router it depends on lose service in a mains power cut unless battery back-up is provided, a council should decide for each critical service how a call for help would still get through during an outage, whether through battery back-up sized for a realistic duration, a mobile signalling path, or an alternative monitoring arrangement. Documenting that decision, and confirming that batteries are maintained rather than fitted once and forgotten, is what allows the body to show auditors and elected members that the duty of care to residents was met throughout the change and not only on the day each line was switched.
Frequently Asked Questions
What must local councils do for PSTN switch-off?
Councils should build a full inventory of analogue lines and the systems they serve, classify those systems by risk, and prioritise telecare, warden-call and lift telephones. They then engage maintenance contractors and communications providers, procure replacement digital services through a compliant route, and plan power resilience so safety-critical functions keep working after migration. Recording the audit and the testing gives elected members and auditors an assurance trail.
Is there government support for public sector VoIP migration?
GOV.UK publishes national guidance on retiring the PSTN, and the Crown Commercial Service provides procurement frameworks that public bodies can use to call off telecoms and network services compliantly. Ofcom sets the regulatory expectations on protecting landline-dependent customers, which is directly relevant to councils that provide telecare. Together these give a council a compliant and defensible basis for its programme.
What is the Crown Commercial Service telecoms framework?
The Crown Commercial Service operates national procurement agreements, including telecommunications and network services, that let public sector buyers access pre-qualified suppliers under agreed terms without running a full bespoke tender. A council can use these agreements to procure connectivity, hosted voice and managed services as it migrates away from analogue lines, and to align the new contracts with the timetable for retiring those lines.
How do public sector bodies manage telecoms procurement?
Public bodies define their requirements, choose a compliant route such as a Crown Commercial Service framework, run any further competition the framework permits, and test value for money. They document the rationale, protect service continuity for residents, and keep a clear audit trail so the decision can withstand scrutiny. Procuring connectivity and voice together reduces the risk of a service going live before the circuit that carries it.
What happens if a council misses the PSTN switch-off deadline?
If a service still relies on an analogue line when the local exchange migrates, that service can stop functioning as before, which is especially serious for telecare and lift telephones. The practical consequence is loss of a safety-critical function and the urgent unplanned cost of replacing it, which is why early audit and migration are emphasised ahead of the 2027 completion that Openreach has published.
