Recommendation 1

HM Government Acknowledged

Introduction from the Committee The Home Office (the Department) is responsible for protecting the border at over 270 crossing points and 56 major entry points. Border Force, a law enforcement command within the Department, has the lead operational responsibility for securing the United Kingdom border by carrying out immigration and customs controls on people and goods entering the UK. Upgrading or replacing legacy systems and improving information at the border through digital transformation programmes has been an ambition of the Department since the launch of its e-borders programme in 2003. In 2014, the Department started its Digital Services at the Border programme (the programme) with a budget of £199 million, as a new attempt to achieve its objectives by March 2019 through replacing the legacy systems Warnings Index and Semaphore. In 2019 the Department ‘reset’ the programme due to changed priorities to support its broader ambition for a digitised immigration system and to provide the border controls required following the UK’s decision to leave the EU, as well as scope creep and poor programme performance. The reset refocused the programme on rolling out Border Crossing and improving rather than replacing the Semaphore system as well as removing goods from the programme scope. This decision extended the programme’s delivery timescales by three years and increased costs by £173 million. The Department now expects to deliver the programme by the end of March 2022. Based on a report by the National Audit Office, the Committee took evidence, on Monday 1 February 2021 from the Home Office. The Committee published its report on 12 March 2021. This is the government’s response to the Committee’s report.