Response to the inspection into the effectiveness of Border Force's role in Project Kraken at small seaports (accessible version)
Published 27 January 2022
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The Home Office thanks the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) for this ‘medium’ inspection report.
This inspection examined the effectiveness of Border Force’s role in Project Kraken at two seaports: Whitby, North East Yorkshire, and Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk, to gain insight from local perspectives and to consider how Project Kraken intelligence is generated, collected and used by Border Force to prevent immigration or customs offences.
Project Kraken is a long-standing multiagency initiative which aims to counter the threats from serious and organised crime, including smuggling, immigration crime and terrorism, around the UK’s coastline. It is a public-facing campaign that has been used since 2008 and aims to encourage the public to report suspicious behaviour in and around the General Maritime (GM) community.
Project Kraken is Border Force led but has significant multi-agency support, including from the National Crime Agency (NCA), Clandestine Threat Command (CTC), Counter Terrorist Policing (CTP) and Territorial Policing. It is primarily aimed at members of the public in coastal communities, pleasure craft users and those in and around small ports, marinas and harbours.
The ICIBI made one recommendation. The Home Office has fully accepted this, and work is already underway to tackle the issues raised.
The Home Office response to the recommendation
The Home Office should:
Recommendation 1
As part of the Project Kraken relaunch, due in Spring 2022, critically evaluate, and where necessary implement:
a) the resources required (including staffing, strategic communications and promotional materials)
b) any new intelligence reporting mechanisms, including changes to improve their efficiency and effectiveness where appropriate
c) mechanisms to continuously measure the effectiveness of the Project.
1.1 Accepted
1.2 The Home Office recognises the importance of Project Kraken and commenced work to redesign and reinvigorate activity in this area in March 2021. The main workstreams of the redesign will address this recommendation.
Information Flows – we will improve reporting mechanisms by providing a more bespoke service, including a dedicated reporting line. This will enable us to improve the user journey for members of the public, address concerns raised by the sector and better monitor Kraken reporting levels thus improving efficiency and effectiveness of reporting. The importance of measuring the levels of reporting linked to Project Kraken – and therefore its effectiveness – also forms part of this workstream. We will revise how we record information linked to Project Kraken to ensure better data is available on reporting levels.
Communications and Branding –we will maximise the impact of our refreshed promotional materials. In particular, we will make our materials more relevant to the pleasure craft sector and the unique nature of the General Maritime community.
Operational and Community Link – in order to ensure that Border Force operational resources are being used to greatest effect in Project Kraken, thus maximising value from deployments, we will deploy large scale, highly visible and impactive operations into General Maritime with an emphasis on community engagement. We will resource deployments by effectively utilising flexible frontline resources, working alongside intelligence collection resources and partner agencies.
Governance – we have established a multiagency Tactical Delivery Group. This oversees the redesign of Kraken and will provide a mechanism to monitor effectiveness and control activity in the future by reviewing operational deployments, monitoring reporting levels and ensuring national consistency.