{"id":6773,"date":"2014-08-18T16:22:21","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T20:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/?p=6773"},"modified":"2026-03-13T15:01:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T22:01:40","slug":"british-home-office-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/?p=6773","title":{"rendered":"British Home Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following entry is a record in the \u201cCatalogue of Catastrophe<\/a>\u201d –\u00a0a list of failed or troubled projects from around the world.<\/p>\n

\n

British Home Office\u00a0<\/strong>– UK
\nProject type :\u00a0<\/strong>Immigration controls
\nProject name :<\/strong>\u00a0e-Borders
\nDate :<\/strong>\u00a0Mar 2014\u00a0 Cost :\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a3224M<\/p>\n

Synopsis :<\/strong>
\nWith changing security threats, securing a country’s borders has become an ever increasing priority. The United Kingdom’s efforts to secure their borders has suffered a significant set back after the now cancelled ‘e-Borders’ project has resulted in a \u00a3224M settlement in favour of the suppliers of the system.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Heathrow departures hall – Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic – Source: Oxyman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Recognizing the threat to the UK the British Labour led government initiated the e-Borders project in 2003. Aimed at checking all movements into and out of the island nation, the project was intended to establish the levels of border control needed to address immigration and security concerns. Following project kick-off a pilot implementation was completed and in 2007 a contract was signed with a consortium lead by Raytheon Systems to develop the full scale system. Reports of problems emerged in 2008 as the British Home Office complained that key milestones were being missed. Problems continued for a number of years and following the election of the new Conservative government in 2010, the Raytheon\u00a0contract was terminated. Although the project itself soldiered on, continual failures to deliver resulted in the project itself being cancelled in March 2014. The project’s requirements have now been reallocated to other ongoing initiatives or projects as the UK government continues its efforts to achieve the goals originally set back in 2003.<\/p>\n

While the project itself clearly encountered significant difficulties, perhaps the most embarrassing misstep is the handling of the Raytheon contract. Following the contract’s termination in 2010, Raytheon threatened to sue the British government. Claiming up to\u00a0\u00a3500M in damages, Raytheon argued that the lengthy delays were caused by the UK Border Agency’s mismanagement of the project rather than deficiencies in their own execution. Rather than going to court, the parties agreed to use binding arbitration. That process reached its conclusion in Aug 2014 with the arbitrators finding in favour of Raytheon. \u00a0The \u00a3224M settlement includes \u00a350m in damages, \u00a3126m for work completed prior to the contract being terminated, \u00a310m to settle complaints relating to changes to the original contract and \u00a338m in interest payments.<\/p>\n

Contributing factors as reported in the press:<\/strong>
\nLack of control over procurements. Failure to establish appropriate benchmarks against which to track project progress and vendor performance. Failure to engage appropriate Subject Matter Experts during procurements. Failure to define and stabilize requirements. Under-estimation of complexity. Politics.<\/p>\n

Reference links :<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Home Office ordered to pay \u00a3224m to e-Borders firm<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Vaz slams e-Borders ‘catastrophe’<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The following entry is a record in the \u201cCatalogue of Catastrophe\u201d –\u00a0a list of failed or troubled projects from around the world. British Home Office\u00a0– UK Project type :\u00a0Immigration controls Project name :\u00a0e-Borders Date :\u00a0Mar 2014\u00a0 Cost :\u00a0\u00a3224M Synopsis : With changing security threats, securing a country’s borders has become an ever increasing priority. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[138,117,97,100,130,93,147],"class_list":["post-6773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-why-projects-fail","tag-causes-of-failure","tag-example-failed-contract-management","tag-examples-of-failed-it-project","tag-examples-of-failed-projects","tag-government","tag-why-do-projects-fail","tag-why-projects-fail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6773"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10087,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6773\/revisions\/10087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}