UK Home Office To Be Split In Two

The Home Office is to be split into separate ministries for justice and security under plans to be announced on Thursday.

The Home Office is to be split into separate ministries for justice and security under plans to be announced on Thursday by Prime Minister Tony Blair, according to media reports.

The division of the sprawling department would take place in May after local elections, newspapers reported.

The Home Office, branded as "not fit for purpose" by John Reid when he took over last year, employs 77,000 staff directly and through a number of agencies including the prison and passport services.

A slimmed down Home Office would retain control over counter-terrorism, immigration, ID cards, policing and border control.

Prisons and the probation service would join the courts system at the Department of Constitutional Affairs, which would be renamed the Ministry or Department of Justice.

Under the plans, Reid would gain day-to-day operational control over Britain's overseas security service, MI6, and its eavesdropping agency GCHQ although both would remain under the oversight of the Foreign Office, newspapers reported.

Reid was appointed Home Secretary last year after the mistaken release of more than 1,000 foreign prisoners led to the downfall of his predecessor, Charles Clarke.

But since then the department has continued to be dogged by a series of blunders, including a failure to input 27,000 British criminals convicted abroad into the police national computer.

Splitting the Home Office would be the largest Whitehall reorganisation undertaken since Labour came to power in 1997.

The division of the department, which dates back to 1782, would require no legislation to be passed, the Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said earlier this year.