The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a report examining the work of the Border Force.
You can read the full 44-page report here.
The Border Force was established in April 2008 as part of the UK Border Agency and is responsible for immigration and customs controls at air, sea and rail ports.
According to the NAO report, the Border Force has successfully implemented full passenger checks and cut queuing times but at the cost of maintaining other aspects of border security.
In its press release, the NAO stated that the Border Force has standardized how its officers check passengers, and almost 100 per cent of passengers at the border now receive full passport checks.
However, officers reported that staff shortages and the requirement to prioritize full passenger checks while managing queue times often prevented their performing other important duties. In addition, during the first months of 2012-13, the Border Force's performance in some of its activities, such as seizures of cigarettes and counterfeit goods, entry refusals and detecting forgeries, was below target.
The NAO says that the Border Force needs to deploy staff flexibly to respond to its competing demands, but is prevented from doing this as efficiently as possible because almost a fifth of its workforce is employed under terms and conditions that restrict working hours to fixed periods during the week.
The Guardian article on the report, entitled Full border passport checks hit illegal migrant screening and drugs seizures, highlighted how the "[p]ush to check all passports at UK borders means other duties are being neglected and staff are afraid to speak out."
The Telegraph chose to highlight IT problems in their article Border security system 'at risk of collapse', warns official watchdog and noted: "A crucial computer system designed to stop terrorists and criminals getting through Britain's border is 'unstable and at risk of collapsing', the official spending watchdog has warned in a new report."
BBC News led with how "Border Force staff at Calais were told to stop searching vehicles for illegal immigrants in order to help deal with queues at passport control."
And for the Daily Mail, Britain's borders are in "chaos" as "[a] terrorist warning system doesn't work, millions of passengers go unchecked and staff are too frightened to blow the whistle".