Systems weren't working correctly, claims Home Secretary

A lack of integration between IT systems is to blame for the latest government debacle over the deportation of prisoners, Home Secretary Charles Clarke has claimed.

The issue arose following media reports that more than 1,000 foreign prisoners who should have been considered for deportation at the end of their sentences had been set free in the UK in the past seven years.

"Getting the various aspects of our operation functioning correctly as they should is something that still remains a problem," Clarke told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"You are talking about very large organisations which are interrelated but do not communicate properly with each other. For example, you've got information technology systems which are different in the different areas."

The Today programme's Jim Naughtie suggested that the problems had continued "despite warnings from the government's own National Audit Office last year that the system was inadequate".

"Many people were considered for deportation and actually deported," responded Clarke. "The fact was that not everybody was deported because our systems weren't working correctly."

Clarke told the Today programme that he had offered his resignation to the Prime Minister over the prisons affair.