British border checks inefficient: auditors

British auditors have criticised the government for failing to complete a project aimed at enhancing checks on people entering the UK even after spending 830-million pounds, prompting Indian-origin head of parliament's home affairs committee Keith Vaz to call the report "devastating."
The scheme of the UK Home Office was aimed at collecting and analysing data on everyone travelling to and from the UK before they arrive at ports and airports. But the UK's National Audit Office (NAO) has found that checks remain "highly manual and inefficient".
"Some valuable capabilities have been added to our border defences during the life of this project, though their efficiency is impaired by a failure to replace old IT systems," said Amyas Morse, head of the NAO.

The auditors said at least 830 million pounds (USD 1.2 billion) had been spent on the e-Borders system intended to overhaul screening procedures.
The plan was introduced in 2003 to enhance checks on people entering the UK by air, rail and sea by gathering and processing data on passengers before they reach the border.
Vaz, chairman of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, described the report as a "devastating indictment" of the e-borders project.

"With the terrorism threat level currently at severe, a failure to properly cover millions of people entering the country without having passenger information in advance gives a green light to people who wish to come to the UK for illegal or dangerous activity," he said.

By collecting advanced passenger information (API), such as passport numbers and nationalities, the e-borders scheme was aimed at preventing people from embarking on journeys to the UK where they were considered a threat. The Home Office stressed that all UK arrivals are checked against watch lists.
"The e-borders programme was set up under the Labour government and when that contract ended in 2010, our immediate priority was to invest in stabilising the crucial but old- fashioned systems, to tackle the fast-evolving terrorist, criminal and illegal immigration threats faced by the UK," UK Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said.
"The Border Systems Portfolio, in conjunction with a range of programmes across security and law enforcement, is working effectively to keep our citizens safe and our country secure," he added.