March 2026 snapshot

Cerberus

Government Transformation and Service Delivery

Record date: 31 March 2026

Whole-life cost: £285.1m
Published schedule: 31/12/2019 – 31/03/2030
NISTA delivery confidence: Not disclosed
Senior responsible owner: Kara Claxton

What the project is for

Cerberus is the Home Office programme to modernise how the UK border identifies risk in people and goods before they arrive and as they cross the border. It brings together data from multiple sources and uses analytics to help officers focus on the highest risk passengers, vehicles and freight, while allowing legitimate travel and trade to flow more smoothly. Cerberus supports both passenger and freight movements. Its current focus is on transforming air passenger targeting and improving risk assessment for roll on roll off freight, alongside strengthening data governance, system resilience and security. This supports the planned retirement of legacy systems that are costly to run and increasingly unreliable, reducing long term technology cost and operational risk. The overarching aim of Cerberus is to strengthen border security by improving the quality and timeliness of targeting decisions. It is designed to increase the detection of criminal activity such as organised immigration crime, smuggling and other high‑harm threats, while reducing unnecessary checks that disrupt the public and businesses. By providing better information to intelligence and operational teams, the programme supports more efficient use of resources and more effective interventions at the border and upstream. Looking ahead, Cerberus provides the digital foundation for a more data‑driven border. It is being delivered in stages, allowing the Home Office to stabilise delivery, learn from ongoing technology trials, and adapt future plans as evidence and operational insight develop.

Departmental delivery commentary

Compared to financial year 24/25 Q4, the NISTA Delivery Confidence Assessment (DCA) rating at 25/26 Q4 remained AMBER. This reflects a balanced position of continued delivery progress alongside the scale, complexity, and transition risks inherent in the programme’s next delivery phase. The programme has demonstrated improved delivery confidence over the last year through strengthened programme management, clearer ownership of the product backlog, and effective closure of critical recommendations from previous NISTA assurance activity. Delivery performance has stabilised, with Cerberus continuing to forecast delivery within its agreed cost, schedule, and quality parameters and evidencing more mature planning, governance, and risk management practices. The AMBER rating also reflects the scale and ambition of Cerberus as a Tier A GMPP programme, including complex data integration, operational dependency management, and transition from legacy systems. While delivery confidence has improved, residual risks remain around supplier transition, dependency management, and the coordination of business change alongside technical delivery. These risks are recognised and actively managed through strengthened governance, enhanced assurance, and closer collaboration between the programme team, Home Office Digital, and operational stakeholders. Overall, the maintained AMBER rating provides a fair and proportionate reflection of Cerberus’ improving delivery trajectory, while recognising the inherent complexity of delivering large‑scale, data‑enabled border security capabilities within a live operational environment.

Schedule

Compared to financial year 24/25-Q4, the project's end-date at 25/26-Q4 remained the same. Despite earlier delivery challenges and the need to re sequence activity in response to technical, supplier and operational dependencies, the programme has remained focused on delivery. The revised delivery profile supports the completion of priority capability within a complex operating environment, while allowing for greater delivery confidence following programme stabilisation. The schedule continues to be driven by the need to complete critical passenger and goods targeting capabilities, including Air Passenger and RoRo delivery, which sit on the critical path to the decommissioning of legacy systems. Maintaining the existing end date has required re‑sequencing activity within the delivery plan to prioritise operational readiness, data quality, and assurance requirements, particularly where earlier phases identified the need to strengthen audit and controls before progressing further capability. In addition, the programme operates within a highly interdependent delivery environment, relying on upstream data pipelines, shared platforms, and alignment with wider Border Force and Home Office transformation activity. The schedule reflects these dependencies and is designed to minimise risk to frontline operations while ensuring Cerberus delivers a sustainable, multi‑modal targeting capability. Overall, retaining the previously published end‑date demonstrates that Cerberus has absorbed delivery complexity through re-planning and prioritisation rather than extending the programme timeline, while maintaining confidence in the achievability of the final end state.

Cost

Compared to financial year 24/25 Q4, the project's departmentally agreed Whole Life Cost at 25/26-Q4 (measured in £m) increased from £240.970m to £288.70m. This is primarily driven by higher transition costs resulting from the supplier change. Monitoring and Evaluation work as part of the InvesCo condition, and a review of run costs.

Benefits

Compared to FY 2024/25 Q4, the project’s departmentally agreed benefits at FY 2025/26 Q4 (measured in £) have remained stable. This reflects the continued maturity of the benefits baseline, with no material changes to agreed benefit assumptions during the period. This position is primarily due to the following factors - Benefits baseline stability. The departmentally agreed benefits baseline was confirmed and locked in FY 2024/25, with no material changes approved during the current reporting period. No material scope change There have been no significant changes to project scope that would materially increase or reduce the agreed benefits profile. Timing of benefits realisation. The majority of financial benefits remain scheduled for realisation in later phases of delivery, rather than within the FY 2025/26 Q4 reporting window. Assumptions unchanged. Key benefits assumptions (including volumes, behaviours, and dependency milestones) remain consistent with those previously approved through governance. Dependency alignment. Planned benefits remain dependent on the successful delivery and adoption of linked capabilities and operational changes, which are proceeding broadly as expected but have not yet triggered additional monetised benefits. No re profiling agreed. No re profiling or re valuation of benefits has been agreed through departmental governance during the period.