Transparency data

9 March 2023: Home Office Biometrics (HOB) programme accounting officer assessment

Updated 2 April 2024

The Full Business Case was approved by the Home Office Finance and Investment Committee (FIC) on 26 September 2022, and we are awaiting Treasury approval.

Background and context

It is normal practice for accounting officers to scrutinise significant policy proposals or plans to start or vary major projects, and then assess whether they measure up to the standards set out in Managing Public Money. From April 2017, the government has committed to make a summary of the key points from these assessments available to Parliament when an accounting officer has agreed an assessment of projects within the Government’s Major Projects Portfolio.

The Home Office Biometrics (HOB) programme provides for the continuation and enhancement of biometric services, fundamental to Home Office (HO) operations, UK Law Enforcement and the Criminal Justice system. These services establish a distinct, digitised, and verifiable identity formed from an individual’s biometric data that can then, subject to permission, be reused across the department, its partner agencies in the UK and internationally.

A range of business operations use biometric products and services. In Migration and Borders Group this includes visa, immigration and asylum applications, passport applications, and border control. In the criminal justice system the biometric identity provided by HOB enables administrative processes related to bail, police vetting, exclusions, and victim identifications as well as supporting criminal investigation at all levels, including counter-terrorism operations and international data exchange.

HOB is delivering a core platform for biometric matching and identification services for the UK and supporting effective national and international data sharing. The platform will initially provide capability for facial matching, fingerprints, and DNA. The platform is designed to be a scalable, and adaptable platform to enable the optimisation and enhancement of existing products whilst being responsive to new business needs or the adoption of wider biometric modalities such as voice and iris.

HOB provides real world outcomes (for example enabling officers to quickly confirm someone’s identity with a mobile fingerprint search on the street, improving the technology to manage DNA profiles or extending the capabilities to share biometrics with international partners). It achieves cost savings and value for money in the Home Office and provides an opportunity to achieve operational efficiency across a range of business functions. It also generates wider public benefits through the identification of new leads for criminal investigations and subsequently more crimes solved. Initiated in 2014/15 the programme first focused upon securing extensions to legacy contracts to the point at which new capability was ready. The programme then successfully focused upon the delivery of biometric capabilities to the HO, Law Enforcement and to OGDs.

Since initiated, the HOB Programme Business Case has been approved at the Home Office Finance and Investment Committee (FIC) (or previous versions of this committee) each year. The HOB Programme Business Case v8 was approved at FIC on 26 September 2022. This AO assessment is being reissued because the programme end date is now March 2025, having been extended from September 2024 as last reported to FIC on 16 September 2021 and there is an updated funding requirement until the end of the programme of £76.7 million. This includes an additional £27.7 million more than forecast in PBC7 for the next two years. The composition of change includes:

• £19 million of underspend due to delayed supplier delivery in 21/22 and 22/23 for Strategic Matcher, SCBP Cloud and Bureau, which has shifted into future years;
• £5 million: Increased costs for delivery of Strategic Facial Matching, the Live Scan refresh, Bureau and SCBP transformation to the Cloud; £2.2 million due to the extension to the Programme and project rescheduling
• £1.4 million of Strategic Matcher run costs now being within the Programme and resulting in a reduction to the run costs charged to policing via the MTA (Memorandum Trading Account).

No changes have been made to the Regularity section. The Proprietary, Value for Money and Feasibility sections have been updated to reflect the changes above.

There have continued to be significant delays to the Strategic Matcher project which will migrate the existing matcher engine from IDENT1 to the new strategic matcher platform currently being developed. It is now forecast to take longer to deliver as the supplier has continued to have sustained capability challenges and a recent data load issue has caused further delays. We now know that Stage 1 will not be delivered before the end of the current contract as originally envisaged and, following completion of the procurement the new supplier will take over delivery of Stage 1 and complete the delivery of the remaining stages.

Assessment against the Accounting Officer Standards

Regularity

The biometric services delivered by the HOB Programme rely on existing legislation (including policing and immigration legislation) which sets down the legal requirements for collecting, storing, searching, retaining and deleting biometric data.

The HOB Programme does not require new or amended legislation to progress. I therefore consider it to conform to the Regularity Accounting Officer standard.

Propriety

For 2022/23, HOB is operating within the Spending Review 2021 (SR21) spending limits, including the allocation from the Police Settlement and in line with the principles and controls set out in Managing Public Money and the HMT Green Book. The HOB Programme Business Case v8 has identified pressures for 2023/24 (£10 million) and 2024/25 (£17 million) due to underspends and increased costs as set out above.

These pressures are being worked through with the department’s Medium Term Financial Plan and the allocation process. The Programme will be considering prioritisations as part of this work and will consider reduced programme scope and a longer delivery timeframe if required.

I consider HOB to align with the principles documented in Managing Public Money and to conform to the Propriety Accounting Officer standard. It will continue to be monitored by the Home Office and the National Audit Office.

Value for money

The overall timeline of the HOB programme has been extended, and costs have increased, but the programme business case still provides a good NPSV and delivers both cashable and wider economic benefits.

The overall cost of the Preferred Option (inclusive of inflation, Optimism Bias (OB)/Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA) and irrecoverable VAT) is £1,320 million (£295 million CDEL and £1,025 million RDEL) in period 2014/15 to 2032/33.

In the latest business case, the cost of the preferred option over the period 22/23 to 32/33 (inclusive of discounting and optimism bias) is £592.8 million. This, when considered alongside monetised benefits of £139.5 million, results in an NPSV of £131.5 million when compared to the baseline option.

HOB has already delivered a number of capabilities enabling significant benefits to be realised:

• Searching crime marks across immigration datasets, providing more leads for crime cases;
• Mobile biometric search service providing on street fingerprint identification and time saving;
• Greater automation of DNA enabling a reduction in manual processing;
• Prüm fingerprint collaboration with Germany and more recently with other EU countries providing greater intelligence for investigations; and
• Immigration facial search - intelligence for Policing/CT on suspects and subjects of interest.

HOB is developing new products and capabilities for future delivery and benefits realisation:

• Mobile biometric enrolment – digital and flexible capture of fingerprints for Immigration;
• Improved fingerprint matching for Policing - more identifications and crimes cleared and efficiencies for bureau;
• Immigration matching – more identifications and efficiencies for bureau and border checks;
• Improved facial matching - passports and border checks - enhanced identity assurance; and
• Improved facial matching for Policing/CT providing greater intelligence and identifications.

The preferred option with its positive NPSV of £131.5 million demonstrates both cashable savings to the HO and significant economic benefits to law enforcement agencies, the wider economy, and the public. The benefits that have been monetised in PBC8 demonstrate that HOB provides strong value for money in its’ own right.

Taking account of the points above, overall, I consider the project to conform to the Value for Money Accounting Officer standard.

Feasibility

Strategic Matcher is a core component of the HOB Programme and will provide the key interlinking capability to match Fingerprint and Face data, a key component in providing a significant improvement to the capabilities already delivered and the further biometric developments planned to be implemented in the future. A £28 million, 5-year contract was signed in February 2018 to deliver law enforcement and immigration fingerprint matching by March 2023. Strategic Matcher Stage 1 will deliver the underlying platform and the mark to print capability for policing. Stage 1 of Strategic Matcher should have been delivered by March 2020 but delays to resolve platform performance and stability, a period to address critical defects and a significant issue with the data which required all test data to be reloaded this year significantly slipped the projected go live date by the current incumbent to February 2024. Delivery will now be taken forward by the new supplier.

The programme has worked closely with the suppliers and undertakes regular reviews conducted by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority to review the approach and monitor delivery confidence.

The IPA Gate 0 Review of the Programme in May 2021 returned a delivery confidence rating of Red. The Review Team found that the delivery approach for Strategic Matcher Project appeared to be unachievable and that this was adversely impacting the timeframe, cost profile, benefit realisation and dependent projects. A strategic, commercial and technical options appraisal was recommended. This work completed in September 2021 and, in line with the recommendations from that appraisal, I endorsed the option to re- procure at the end of the initial contract period and source a supplier to walk in and take over delivery (post Stage 1 delivery) as the preferred option.

An IPA Assurance of Action Plan review was undertaken in early September 2021 and returned a delivery confidence rating of Amber. The Review Team found that reasonable and evidenced progress had been made on the previous recommendations and subject to conditions, supported the submission of the business case for approval and to proceed to the next stage of market engagement for the procurement of a replacement contract for the Strategic Matcher Project.

The procurement activity commenced in September 2021 and following Home Office Commercial Approvals Board (CAB) and Cabinet Office approval in early 2022, the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation (CPN) process launched in April 2022. Significant progress has been made on the re-procurement and an exit plan for the incumbent supplier. The expectation is at the point of handover to the new supplier the design of all Stage 1 services will be complete.

A further IPA Gate 0 review that took place in September 2022 returned a delivery confidence rating of Amber. Based on the latest IPA review and FIC scrutiny of the resultant revised business case, I consider the programme to meet the feasibility test.

Conclusion

The Home Office Biometrics Programme conforms to the four Accounting Officer standards of regularity, propriety, value for money and feasibility. There are challenges with regards to the delivery of the Strategic Matcher Project. However, there are mitigations in place and a re-procurement for a new supplier is fully underway. I therefore consider the programme, which contributes to the protection and safeguarding of the public by providing key facilities to Policing forensics and immigration to solve crimes and confirm identity, to warrant approval to progress.

As the Accounting Officer for Home Office Biometrics within the Home Office I considered this assessment of the Home Office Biometrics Business Case and approved it on Thursday 9 March. I have prepared this summary to set out the key points which informed my decision. If any of these factors change materially during the lifetime of this project, I undertake to prepare a revised summary, setting out my assessment of them. This summary will be published on the government’s website (GOV.UK). Copies will be deposited in the Library of the House of Commons and sent to the Comptroller and Auditor General, Treasury Officer of Accounts and the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.

09/03/2023

Matthew Rycroft KCMG CBE

Permanent Secretary for the Home Office