Public Sector
Home Office probes supplier interest as core police and immigration system heads for support shake-up
The UK Home Office wants to talk to suppliers about its plans for two
potential procurements for the Strategic Central and Bureau
Platform (SCBP), its core biometrics system, worth up to £300
million.
The department said the procurements could cover support, development, and ongoing
modernization of SCBP after it shifted much of the platform to “more
modern and widely adopted technology stacks.”
It said this could
allow a broader range of suppliers to undertake support and
development work, and split up the work (“potential
disaggregation”), according to a preliminary market engagement notice.
The notice quotes a total estimated
value for the contracts of £296 million including VAT over up to 11
years from October 2027, although it adds that this is based on current
annual charges – suggesting these are around £27 million – and
should be seen as indicative. The Home Office is holding an event
with TechUK on May 15 to start the discussion, with participants
required to sign a non-disclosure agreement first.
SCBP is part of the long-running Home
Office Biometrics (HOB) program to bring together the government’s
collections of fingerprints, DNA profiles, and facial images. SCBP provides the
core components of the Immigration and Asylum Biometrics System
(IABS) used for passports, immigration and borders, and the corresponding Ident1 service used by law enforcement.
The department’s most recent
assessment of the HOB program in December 2024
referred to a cost increase of £47.8 million, including £34 million of
this covering Ident1 modernization “to deal with urgent
obsolescence issues and security vulnerabilities” and £4.4
million for an upgrade to support Livescan, through which police
officers collect fingerprints and facial images following arrests.
The assessment said the overall cost
of the HOB program from 2014-15 to 2034-35 then stood at £1.55
billion. According to Home Office permanent secretary Matthew
Rycroft, benefits include searching crime marks (such as fingerprints
left at crime scenes) against immigration databases, the police’s
mobile fingerprint identification service, and the ability to
collaborate with other countries. ®
