Border Force left rudderless in migrant crisis as top post remains vacant
PRITI PATEL is facing a leadership crisis at the top of Border Force as it wrestles with a record number of migrant crossings and one of the worst Channel disasters on record.
The Home Secretary has been unable to find a suitable candidate to head up the department as part of an overhaul ordered in the summer amid frustration at the failure to stem the flow of migrants.
The top post remains vacant nearly six months after it was advertised as part of a potential merger of Border Force and Immigration Enforcement. The position is currently held by civil servants on an interim basis.
It is compounded by vacancies in the small boats team which has seen a record 26,000 people reach the UK this year, treble the number for the whole of 2020.
The small boat posting is seen as a “poisoned chalice” that no one wants to apply for from within Whitehall as numbers crossing the Channel have continued to rise month-by-month.
“They haven’t got anyone for the top job,” said one well-placed source.
“It’s a disaster. Priti was not happy with any of the candidates. They could not even initially find anyone to do the interim job at Border Force.”
It is believed three people applied to be director general of Border Force and Immigration Enforcement – two internal candidates and one former chief constable. All were rejected after interviews led by Patricia Hayes, the Home Office’s second permanent secretary.
The search for a candidate has now started again, forcing plans for any merger of border control and enforcement to be put on hold. The Border Agency was split into the two departments in 2013 with insiders at the time describing it as “mad” to break it up.
David Wood, the former head of Immigration Enforcement, said: “Border Force are responsible as they arrive on our shores. If they get one-and-a-half miles inland, then Immigration Enforcement is responsible for them. When they are intercepted, they have to hand them over to Asylum and Immigration. You end up with barriers between different parts. Each has its own budget, its own priorities and they are not particularly connected up.”
The Border Force union also claims it has a shortage of 1,000 staff partly because of the difficulties of training new recruits due to Covid restrictions.