{"id":8871,"date":"2020-01-13T12:11:11","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T20:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/?p=8871"},"modified":"2026-01-15T13:49:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T21:49:02","slug":"customs-and-border-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/?p=8871","title":{"rendered":"Customs and Border Protection"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following entry is a record in the \u201cCatalogue of Catastrophe<\/a>\u201d \u2013\u00a0a list of failed or troubled projects from around the world.<\/p>\n

\n

Department of Homeland Security\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013\u00a0USA
\nProject type :\u00a0<\/strong>Staff recruitment
\nDate :<\/strong>\u00a0Apr 2019
\nCost :<\/strong>\u00a0$23M to hire 22 new staff<\/p>\n

Synopsis :<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Statue of Liberty – Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic – Source: W. Warby<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2016, as part of the USA’s renewed focus on border security, the US\u00a0Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was charged with increasing the number of border agents who secure\u00a0the nation’s points of entry. The goal was to increase enforcement and tighten the doorway to the\u00a0nation.<\/p>\n

On a daily basis CBP faces an enormous challenge. CBP typically\u00a0handles more an a\u00a0million travellers,\u00a0screens more than 65,000 cargo shipments\u00a0and handles thousands of infractions or arrests every day.\u00a0Requiring knowledge, nerve and a keen understanding of human psychology, it’s not an easy role to fulfill. Attracting, training and successfully deploying the number of\u00a0new agents required represented a significant challenge.<\/p>\n

Rather than spearheading the effort themselves and hoping to ramp up quickly, CBP elected to\u00a0hire a big name external consulting firm to lead the project. The resulting 5-year, $297M contract\u00a0aimed to recruit 7,500\u00a0Customs and Border Protection officers, Border Patrol agents, and Air and Marine Interdiction agents took effect in November 2017.<\/p>\n

As at times happens in consulting contracts, the initial promises made in the pre-contract sale pitch turn out to be harder to implement than initially thought. Attracting qualified candidates and administering the multi-dimensional and multi-layer checks necessary proved difficult. In the initial ramp up year a total of $13M was spent, but only 2 agents accepted job offers. Alarms bells sounded and the Office of the Inspector General took note. The subsequent ‘Management alert’ report (titled –\u00a0CBP Needs to Address Serious Performance Issues on the Accenture Hiring Contract) dated 6 Dec 2018\u00a0noted:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

“Accenture was supposed to provide a team of technical experts and tools to fulfill contract requirements. Instead, the Accenture relied heavily on CBP resources to complete the hiring process. Accenture did not always provide necessary technical experts and experienced vendors, such as human resource personnel and those involved in the background investigation process, to complete CBP\u2019s hiring process end-to-end, as it indicated it would in the PWS. Accenture also claimed it could provide an innovative applicant tracking system to manage the hiring process. However, Accenture did not deploy its proposed applicant tracking system and used CBP\u2019s hiring system instead.”<\/p>\n

Ultimately CBP elected to scrap the contract in Apr\u00a02019. Final costs haven’t been published, but initial reports indicate\u00a0$23M was spent and 22 agents hired. At the end of the day the cost per agent is likely to be even more. When hiring most organizations anticipate an attrition in the first few years. Only a percentage of those hired will stay\u00a0in the role long term and rather than a staffing surge the agency ended up with\u00a0little to show for their efforts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Contributing factors as reported in the press:\u00a0<\/strong>
\nUnderestimation of complexity.\u00a0Issues related with staffing the project with appropriate skilled resources. Deficiencies\u00a0in the software being used to support the project.<\/p>\n

Related stories:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. G4S \u2013 Olympics Security Shambles<\/a>\u00a0– Another large scale recruitment project that struggled to attract and manage candidates effectively.<\/li>\n
  2. Texas Child Support Enforcement System 2.0<\/a> – Although a completely different type of project, the Texas T2 project placed enormous trust in the capabilities of its consultants. The underlying message with the Texas T2 and CBP projects\u00a0is that buyers need to get a lot smarter with the way they contract out to these consulting firms.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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

      \n
    1. ‘Serious’ issues with $297 million CBP hiring contract, internal watchdog says<\/a><\/li>\n
    2. CBP terminates controversial $297 million Accenture contract amid continued staffing struggles<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The following entry is a record in the \u201cCatalogue of Catastrophe\u201d \u2013\u00a0a list of failed or troubled projects from around the world. Department of Homeland Security\u00a0\u2013\u00a0USA Project type :\u00a0Staff recruitment Date :\u00a0Apr 2019 Cost :\u00a0$23M to hire 22 new staff Synopsis : In 2016, as part of the USA’s renewed focus on border security, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,3,77],"tags":[138,100,17,9,143,62,93,147],"class_list":["post-8871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-private-sector","category-failed-project","category-why-projects-fail","tag-causes-of-failure","tag-examples-of-failed-projects","tag-leadership","tag-pattern-in-failure","tag-project-management","tag-quality-management","tag-why-do-projects-fail","tag-why-projects-fail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8871","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=8871"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9942,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8871\/revisions\/9942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}