Security & Defence

A National Audit Office (NAO) report reveals the number of foreign national offenders (FNOs) deported from the UK remains broadly unchanged whilst the number of FNOs in prison has increased by 4% since 2006 despite a tenfold increase in Home Office staff working on FNO cases. 

The chief of the Met Police has today emphasised the importance of the Home Office’s anti-radicalisation ‘Prevent’ strategy, arguing that "we can't arrest our way out of this problem. We do have to do a lot around prevention. Radicalisation is not an event, it's a process.”

Admiral Lord West predicts that more emergency legislation over monitoring communications is likely to be needed if the Communications Data Bill does not go forward.

Journalist and historian Peter Hennessy meets former chief of the defence staff General Sir David Richards to discuss Whitehall’s internal wars, and the need for truly strategic thinking in Whitehall

Former UK Border Agency chief executive Rob Whiteman writes about the challenges and frustrations of heading up, and ultimately dismantling, the organisation

The Home Office has today been ordered to pay US defence contractor Raytheon Systems more than £220m by an arbitration tribunal considering the termination of the e-borders contract.

Passport workers are on a 24-hour strike today over a pay dispute and staff shortages, with the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) claiming these workers earn as much as £3,000 less than other Home Office staff doing similar roles.

Like Robert the Bruce’s persistent spider, the people trying to reform the way the Ministry of Defence buys and manages equipment keep returning to the fray. Colin Marrs reports

The Home Office has managed to absorb the former UK Border Agency back into the Department without a significant fall in performance, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report published today.

The UK Border Agency (UKBA), which was this year abolished by home secretary Theresa May, was “never going to work”, its former chief Rob Whiteman told the Public Administration Select Committee on 17 June.

The government should conduct a comprehensive review of its interventions in Afghanistan in 2001, the Commons’ Defence Committee said in a report on Tuesday. This should encompass not just military operations, but all the UK’s work under the NATO and UN missions.