Government snared in fight over scrapped £742m e-Borders contract The UK Border Agency is locked in a "binding arbitration" process with Raytheon after the IT supplier was sacked from the failing £1.2bn e-Borders immigration programme in July last year. Up until being removed from the e-Borders contract Raytheon had been paid £188 million, out of its £742 million contract. Under the arbitration process, an independent authority will set an agreement between the parties, which they will be obliged to adhere to. The process follows the government commencing litigation against the supplier, around payments, and is usually seen as an attempt to avoid being locked in court hearings for a much longer period of time. Raytheon had been subject to performance related pay but the government had expressed strong dissatisfaction over its performance. A Home Affairs Committee report published today said that in spite of Raytheon's removal the programme is still behind schedule and its future plan remains uncertain.
Welcome to Creativity for Life - Roydon Primary school Situated in the picturesque village of Roydon, Roydon Primary school is a small school of approximately 200 boys and girls from five to eleven years of age. Our school believes that learning should be exciting, enjoyable and challenging. Our mission statement, “Promoting excellence for all by emphasising the development of the individual”, was agreed by staff and governors, and is what we constantly strive to achieve. The main building of our school was built in 1876, with later additions of a hall, dining room, library and classroom in the 1960s, and most recently a new block of classrooms, Cedar Lodge, in September 2007. As part of the opening ceremony for Cedar Lodge, the Year 5 children performed a Samba Procession to bring music from the old building to the new. Some of their percussion instruments were made from materials from the demolished buildings. An ethos of thinking, caring and learning is encouraged. We recognise that “a happy school is an achieving school”.
Clarity needed to complete UK e-borders project 3 June 2011 | Adam Leach A report by the Home Affairs Committee said it remained deeply concerned over a “lack of clarity about the final shape of the scheme”. The project is designed to strengthen immigration controls by collecting and analysing information on people entering and leaving the UK. Last year the Home Office dropped the initial supplier, RaytheonSystems , saying it had “no confidence” Raytheon could address the delays that had beset the project’s implementation. IBM has taken over the running of the database, and Serco handles the interface between the Border Agency and transporters, such as airlines and ferry operators, and the facility to check names against lists. The group of MPs said while the first supplier has been removed, the fundamental issue behind the problems experienced remains. Keith Vaz, chair of the Committee, said: “Though progress has been made, it is clear that the UK Border Agency is still not fit for purpose.
Writs fly over e-borders termination According to theDaily Telegraph, Robert Delorge, chief executive of Raytheon UK, has claimed in a letter to the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee that the "purported termination was unlawful and that Raytheon is entitled to recover substantial damages for wrongful termination". The letter reveals that the company has "made counterclaims in the arbitration in excess of £500million in respect of these matters". The legal action may explain the coalition government's nervousness about cancelling contracts with other large major IT suppliers, even when milestones have not been met. In its letter, Raytheon claims that it had only "limited visibility of any targets or policy objectives" that the government may have had for e-borders, but says that it delivered a system enabling the government to meet its aim of processing 100 million airlines passengers annually.
Home Office denies reports of e-Borders closure High performance access to file storage The Home Office has said that reports of the e-Borders programme being closed are incorrect and that it is still up and running. Earlier this week it was reported in sources including The Scotsman and This Is London that the programme had been dropped as part of the effort, led by the Cabinet Office, to find major savings on IT projects. But a Home Office spokesman told GGC this was down to "innacurate reporting" and that e-Borders is continuing. The programme to monitor movements of people in and out of the UK has run into a series of problems. In July 2010, Raytheon was sacked as the prime contractor, and in October IBM was awarded a deal to run the Semaphore pilot project.
Raytheon seeks £500m e-Borders payoff | Compliance US defence contractor Raytheon is seeking over £500m from the UK government in compensation for a contract for the e-Borders passenger-processing project that it says was wrongfully terminated. Raytheon revealed it has lodged a claim for over half a billion pounds in a letter to the Home Affairs Select Committee (PDF), published on Friday. "We maintain that the purported termination was unlawful and that Raytheon is entitled to recover substantial damages for wrongful termination," the company's chief executive Robert Delorge said in the letter. Raytheon's action comes at a time when the UK government has slashed public-sector budgets across the board. In 2007, Raytheon signed a £650m deal with the government as the lead supplier in a consortium to develop and implement the e-Borders system, which would perform checks on passengers entering and leaving the UK. Raytheon did not finish any of the further stages in the remaining three phases of the project, according to the minister.
Government facing lawsuit over e-borders project 26 August 2011Last updated at 13:10 The system is due to be fully in place by 2014 The government is being sued over its decision to sack the firm which managed its e-borders immigration system. Raytheon is seeking more than £500m in damages, saying the decision to terminate the contract last year was "unjustified and unlawful". At the time, ministers attributed the move to delays in the project and it having "no confidence" in the firm. But Raytheon, which has since been replaced, said problems were due to mismanagement by the UK Border Agency. Details of the lawsuit emerged in correspondence between the US-based firm - which is also a major IT supplier to the Ministry of Defence - and the Home Affairs Select Committee. Launched by the last Labour government, the £750m e-borders project is designed to collate and store information on all passengers who enter and leave the UK on a single database by 2014 to enable the police and immigration officials to check them against "watch lists".
ID cards, cameras, border controls - everything is on record | World news National e-Borders scheme What's it for? The Home Office says it will "transform our border control" by gathering information on all travellers entering or leaving the country by air, sea or rail. The scheme, launched as a pilot called "semaphore" in 2004, will compile biographical information on all travellers with advance passenger information obtained from carriers, such as airline and flight number, details of reservations and payment. The Home Office says the database will generate "travel histories" for all passengers and have a particular emphasis on biometrics, including fingerprints, DNA, iris patterns and face recognition, which have already started to be contained in passports. How far will it go? The Home Office is still testing the scheme, which is reportedly due to go live in April, automatically generating details of an estimated 250m journeys into and out of the UK each year which will be stored on a central database. What are the principal concerns? National identity register
Body Check Julie Gillis, of the UK Border Agency, tells Future Airport about the delivery of the first e-Borders Programme. In recent years a number of countries have initiated biometric schemes aimed at protecting their borders. Although they are typically launched amid claims that they will accelerate the immigration process, this isn't always their central purpose, and frequently the new systems culminate in long queues. Back in 2002 Australia unveiled its plans for SmartGate, a system that uses biometric facial recognition technology linked to the passenger's e-passport. e-Borders Now e-Borders (electronic borders), a programme run by the UK Home Office's UK Border Agency at a likely total cost of £1.2bn, aims to tighten security at the country's borders. e-Borders is a joint programme run in partnership with the police and intelligence agencies. Julie Gillis, programme director for e-Borders, explains: "Border control is undergoing the biggest shake up in border security for over 40 years.
nsultants bag £37m from failed e-Borders contract Top 10 endpoint backup mistakes The Home Office paid more than £37m to just one consultancy for advice on the e-Borders contract, which was torn up by the coalition after the election. The advisory payments to Deloitte compare to the £750m cost of the floundering project to record details of every traveller into and out of the UK. Trusted Borders, the Raytheon-led consortium of technology companies appointed by Labour to implement the system, was sacked by Theresa May in July over previously undisclosed delays of more than 12 months. Deloitte began advising the government on e-Borders in September 2005, and played a key role in the design of the complex contract with Trusted Borders. Today only two consultants from the firm remain on the programme, tidying up the failed contract with Trusted Borders. The Home Office today reaffirmed it is committed to the e-Borders programme, and said the massive contract will be reopened to tender. Top 10 endpoint backup mistakes
IBM bags £15m borders deal The Home Office has awarded a support deal to extend the use of its Semaphore border system, following the cancellation of the e-Borders contract. The government awarded the support deal to IBM without a competition, as it said that as the current supplier it is the "only possible provider" capable of keeping Semaphore in action. In July it cancelled the contract of the Trusted Borders consortium, led by Raytheon, to provide a new e-Borders system for the UK Border Agency. "The contract term is expected to be six months but a term of up to two years has been allowed for, depending on the authority's revised e-Borders procurement strategy," reads the award notice, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 27 October 2010. Project Semaphore acted as the pilot for e-Borders, and has been used to profile passengers on flights and boat trips in and out of the country using advance passenger information. It started in 2004, and ended its development phase in March 2008.
UK.gov sacks lead e-Borders contractor High performance access to file storage The Home Office has sacked lead contractor Raytheon from the £1.2bn e-Borders programme, saying it has "no confidence" in the firm. The immigration minister Damian Green said today the programme was running at least 12 months late and that Raytheon had been in breach of contract since July last year. Raytheon was the lead contractor of the "Trusted Borders" consortium which won a £650m deal to build the e-Borders system in 2007. A further £92m was added to the contract in 2008, and so far taxpayers have paid out £188m. "The government is determined to get value for money from its major contracts and requires the highest standard of performance from its suppliers," said Green. "We will now be seeking alternative providers to continue to deliver this project as a matter of urgency." The other members of Trusted Borders, including Serco, Detica, Accenture and Qinetiq will also effectively be sacked*, as their contracts were dependent on Raytheon.
Border control row: why targeted checks are a commonsense approach | UK news There's a new Theresa May joke doing the rounds this week. It goes: "Knock, Knock! 'Come in!'" The home secretary's admission that she has no idea how many illegal migrants and suspected terrorists and criminals got into Britain during her four-month pilot project to relax border controls is undoubtedly politically damaging for a "tough-on-immigration" government. But that should not be allowed to mask the fact that introducing a regime of intelligence-led, targeted checks on higher-risk categories of travellers is no more than a commonsense approach to maintaining the integrity of Britain's borders, when more than 125 million passengers come into the country each year. As May pointed out, the targeted checks actually led to 10% more illegal migrants being intercepted than than would have been under the pre-existing blanket checks. That is 2,500 out of 125 million – it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. The Home Office has tried automating the process.
Home Office: Border screening leads to 10,000 arrests e-Borders is a system by which air carriers and operators of vessels submit passenger and crew details electronically prior to travel from and to the UK. As a result of the screening system, which was introduced in 2005, there are now an average of 52 arrests per week at ports and airports across the country for a range of crimes, immigration and customs offences. 380 million passengers have been processed through the system during the last six years, which has resulted in over 10,000 arrests for murder and rape, seizures of Class A drugs and the refusal of entry to the UK for immigration offenders and ‘over-stayers’. Commenting on the statistic, immigration minister Damian Green said: “The Government is doing more than ever before to protect the UK’s border. By checking passenger and crew information before travel, law enforcement agencies can apprehend those trying to evade justice.” 122 carriers on over 3,000 routes provide passenger data to e-Borders. Bringing offenders to justice