Reid mulls Home Office split
John Reid has acted as Tony Blair's troubleshooter in the past
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Sunday, 21, Jan 2007 08:12
Home secretary John Reid is considering splitting the Home Office into two separate departments, according to media reports.
The proposals, reported in the News of the World and Sunday Telegraph newspapers, would see the establishment of new departments dealing with national security and matters relating to criminal justice, including tackling immigration and organised crime.
Dr Reid has struggled to turn around the Home Office since arriving at the department in the wake of Charles Clarke's resignation after the foreign prisoners' deportation row.
Concerns that the department is "not fit for purpose", in Dr Reid's own words, have escalated in recent weeks after it emerged that the number of absconders from Britain's prisons was unknown.
Most recently the Home Office's failure to transfer information about criminals committing offences in Europe onto the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), resulting in four drug-related offenders being passed for work with children, sparked renewed criticism.
Reacting to these incidents, Dr Reid published comments in this morning's Sunday Telegraph newspaper showing his determination to instigate "radical change".
"There must be no sacred cows when it comes to protecting security and administering justice - the two fundamental roles demanded of the Home Office and the home secretary," he writes.
"While in the short term my focus will be on putting right that which needs the most urgent attention - including the way we deal with the transfer of criminal records information and prison pressures - in the long term even more radical change may be unavoidable."
But shadow home secretary David Davis has expressed his doubts about the proposed split, warning that a break-up of the department could lead to "a whole new set of problems".
"It is not sensible to simply say the job cannot be done; we must remember that while the last three years at the Home Office have been its worst three years in its two centuries of existence, previous home secretaries have managed to run the Home Office even when it had more responsibilities (including electoral law and the BBC)," he said.
"It is often the case that when someone says a task is impossible it's because that someone cannot do it themselves. This seems to be the case with Dr John Reid."