A UK parliamentary committee has warned that Britain's eBorders programme and its successors are set to cost over a billion pounds, be delivered eight years late, and not provide the expected benefits.In the report "e-Borders and successor programmes", the Public Accounts Committee says there are doubts over both current assertions and projections for the e-Borders programme."The Department needs to accept that its assertion that it checks 100% of passports is both imprecise and unrealistic due to the complexity of our border. It is now five years since the e-Borders contract was cancelled yet the capabilities delivered so far still fall short of what was originally envisaged".It terms of factors to blame for the delays and confusion, the committee says that a major reason for was the termination by the Department in 2010 of its e-Borders contract with Raytheon.The UK government had started to collect and analyse border data in 2003 and major US defence contractor Raytheon won a contract in 2007 to deliver an 'e-Borders' scheme. The coalition government cancelled the contract in 2010 and successor programmes, including the Border Systems Programme and Digital Services at the Border, were introduced.The Committee says it is concerned the Home Office "does not have a clear picture of the management information it has or needs to manage the UK border" and finds that this, together with continual changes in senior management, has hindered the successful delivery of border programmes.

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