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Friday, Oct 03, 2025

£830m failed UK border system blamed on ‘lack of effective leadership’

£830m failed UK border system blamed on ‘lack of effective leadership’

United Kingdom (UK) Taxpayers are being hit with the "staggering" cost of failed UK border IT projects, despite the country spending at least £830 million on the projects, a spending watchdog has warned.

According to reports from the BBC, the e-borders project was meant to collect and analyse data on everyone travelling to and from the UK before they arrive at ports and airports, however, UK Home Office has been criticized for failing to complete the scheme.

But the National Audit Office says checks remain "highly manual and inefficient", and IT systems outdated with the UK Public Accounts Committee saying the Home Office had a "miserable record of exorbitantly expensive digital programmes that fail to deliver".

Johnson's Gov't under fire for failures


With Boris de Pfeffel Johnson ‘aka ‘Boris’, currently at the helm of government, the Public Accounts Committee blamed a "lack of effective leadership, management and oversight" at the UK border department despite claims from the Home Office that the problems were "historical" and had been fixed.

But the committee warned in a parliamentary report that the department "continues to struggle with delivery of technology programmes at staggering cost to the taxpayer".

Border agents are still having to use out-of-date technology to decide who is allowed into the UK. Delays to the new Digital Services at the Border (DSAB) programme - meant to replace outdated systems including the failed e-borders scheme - have cost the taxpayer £173m so far, the committee said.

According to reports from the BBC, the e-borders project was meant to collect and analyse data on everyone travelling to and from the UK before they arrive at ports and airports however, UK Home Office has been criticized for failing to complete the scheme.


Johnson refusing CoI


The reports of poor management and failed spending comes as the UK Government has launched a January 2021 Commission of Inquiry into British Overseas Territory (OT), the Virgin Islands.

UK's embattled leader Johnson and his government, however, refused to submit to mid-2020 calls for a CoI into allegations of corruption and nepotism in the disastrous handling of the UK's COVID-19 crisis.

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