The government has sacked the supplier responsible for delivering the £750m e-Borders contract, due to serious concerns about the running of the much-delayed programme and confidence in the US defence and security firm’s ability to address these delays.

It has been reported that the project was singled out for early attention by the cross-government “efficiency and reform group” headed by Francis Maude at the Cabinet Office and Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury.

While, immigration minister Damian Green said in a written statement to Parliament that Raytheon Systems has been in breach of contract since July 2009 and extensive negotiations had failed to produce a resolution.

The Government now is seeking for a supplier to replace Raytheon and, according to reports, Raytheon's sub-contractors on the project, which include Detica, Qinetiq, Serco and Accenture will also be changed.

The Home Office signed the deal with Raytheon, lead contractor in the Trusted Borders consortium, in November 2007.

The programme is designed to track the movement of people in and out of the UK's borders, and will involve checks being made against incoming passengers at their point of embarkation to see if they are on police and security watchlists.

The project was initiated by the Labour government, but has always been supported by the Tories. At the time the agreement was valued at more than £650m.