Border Agency ‘forced to hire staff after rushing to cut too many jobs’

Instead of slowing down staff cuts when it emerged that an automated system designed to save money was both a year late and tens of millions of pounds over budget, the UKBA increased the speed of its planned changes, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.

More than 1,000 staff over and above the planned reductions were lost last year, performance dropped and there was little evidence of the strong leadership needed to resolve the problems, the report added.

Border Force staff working at Heathrow Airport, one of its most criticised operations, also appeared reluctant to take up more changes.

A voluntary system where staff work a set number of hours each year, rather than each week – so they can work longer hours when it is busier during the Olympics, summer or Christmas periods – was taken up by 62 per cent of staff, saving almost a fifth (£613,000) of premium payments and overtime in the first six months of 2011-12.

But less than a third (32 per cent) of staff at Heathrow joined the scheme, meaning payments there increased by 8 per cent.

Changes were also brought in cautiously, “partly through concern about industrial relations, but also piecemeal, without evaluating their potential impact”, the report said.

A lack of integration, with some 120 separate targets and significant changes being made “independent of head-count reduction”, affected both efficiency and performance, the watchdog said.

The UKBA employed 22,580 staff, including the Border Force, in April last year, but this had dropped to 20,469 by April this year, figures showed.

“In 2011-12, the agency’s workforce reduced by over 1,000 more than planned, despite the fact that progress was slower than expected in the ICW  [immigration case work] programme and workforce modernisation at the border, and no agency-wide skills strategy was yet in place,” the report said.

“The result of this disconnect was, in some places, a dip in performance and the need to hire new staff or increase overtime.”

It added: “Agency performance has dipped in some specific areas, in part due to implementing staff reductions faster than originally planned.

“For example, performance in London and the south-east has come under pressure due to staff shortages.”

More people than expected wanted to leave the agency, with early exit costs amounting to £60 million between 2010 and 2012, the NAO added.

The £385m ICW computer system, which aimed to improve efficiency and cut costs, has “significant problems” and, despite early successes, “has slipped by a year and is over budget”, it said.

Although less was delivered than expected, the system was £28m (12 per cent) over its £224m budget by the end of March and overall savings had been revised down to £106m.

Some 540 requirements, previously described as “must-haves”, have been removed or postponed in the latest version of the system, leading to limitations, including that customers will not be able to track their applications online.