Mr David Hanson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr David Hanson on 2014-03-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the decision to cancel the e-borders programme was taken.

James Brokenshire

The activities of the e-Borders programme have been absorbed into the Border
Systems Programme. The estimated cost to close the e-Borders programme and
define the Border Systems Programme was £340,000. These costs are attributable
to civil servants already in post and there has been no additional expenditure
or procurement in order to move the work from e-Borders to Border Systems.

The procurement approach to replacing the primary border security elements of
the Border Systems Programme will reflect broader Government ICT and Commercial
strategy, and there will be no single, large supplier. The Home Office will
lead development, with services procured from a range of providers, potentially
including small and medium enterprises; no tenders have been received at this
time.

By March 2015 the Border Systems Programme aims to:

• Complete resilience of all current business critical systems;
• Develop replacement primary border security systems;
• Provide the capability to support commitments on exit checks;
• Establish a programme for the next generation of Radiological and Nuclear
detection (Cyclamen);
• Continue the implementation of second generation e-Gates across the estate;
• Develop and implement new freight targeting capability for Sea Containers;
• Establish contracts to purchase new detection equipment;
• Continue to assure live operations of existing systems.

The breakdown of FTE Civil Servants engaged by the e-Borders and subsequently
the Border Systems Programme in each year since 2010, is: