Recommendation 5

We see a clear risk that the Department will not be able to deliver the programme by the end of March 2022. The Department started its latest rollout of the Border Crossing system on time, but it has so far reached only 300 frontline users at 7 locations out of an intended 7,000 at 56 locations by June 2021. It still has no proof that systems can cope with passenger volumes that existed prior to COVID-19, let alone the 6% annual growth in the volume of passengers it is allowing for above the 140 million people that arrived in the UK annually prior to COVID-19. The Department also plans to include new mobile technology so that Border Force staff covering small ports and airports not included in the Border Crossing rollout will still benefit from the delivery of the Digital Services at the Border programme. Despite recent modest improvements to its risk ratings and achievement against milestones, the Department’s own rating of scope risk was Red as recently as August