The United Kingdom’s Home Office yesterday said it has decided to cancel its approximately $1 billion contract with Raytheon [RTN] for an electronic border (e-Borders) security program that the government said is at least a year behind schedule.
Theresa May, the U.K. Home Secretary, said in a statement that she “has no confidence in the prime supplier of the e-Borders contract, Raytheon, which since July 2009 has been in breach of contract. With critical parts of the program already running at least 12 months late, we have taken the decision to terminate the e-Borders contract with them.”
Raytheon won the potential $1.3 billion contract in the fall of 2007 as the lead on the Trusted Borders team, beating another team led by British Telecom (Defense Daily, Nov. 15, 2007). Under the award, Raytheon was supposed to have a system in place this year that would allow British authorities to do watchlist checks of persons entering or exiting the country by air, sea or rail prior to boarding.
Despite the problems, May said that the U.K. still wants to eventually continue moving forward with the project.
“We will now be seeking alternative providers to deliver this project as a matter of urgency,” May said.
In a statement, Raytheon said it was “disappointed” with yesterday’s announcement and expects to “review this matter with the Home Office at the earliest opportunity to address the path forward.”
The company said that e-Borders has already demonstrated success.
“We have delivered a live operating capability that now screens more than 120 million passenger journeys per year, representing more than half of the traffic entering and leaving the country,” Raytheon said. “The advanced screening processes we have introduced with our partners have enabled thousands of alerts and arrests since program inception.”
When the contract was awarded in November 2007, Jacqui Smith, who was Home Secretary at the time, said that the plan was to cover at least half of all journeys into the United Kingdom by mid-2009 and 95 percent by 2010.