John Reid, the new Home Secretary, promised a "profound and wholesale transformation" of the Home Office today as he was grilled by MPs about the foreign prisoner fiasco that provoked the sacking of his predecessor, Charles Clarke.

In his first appearance before the Commons Home Affairs Committee, Mr Reid was especially scathing of the Home Office Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) and said that he had ordered a "fundamental overhaul" of it.

Referring the IND, he said: "Our system is not fit for purpose. It is inadequate in terms of its scope, it is inadequate in terms of its information technology, leadership, management systems and processes," he said.

Mr Reid said that he had had to deal with a "tidal wave of events" since his appointment just over two weeks ago and shared the "frustrations" of MPs and the public at the failings that had been exposed.

He said that the IND was struggling to cope with a huge rise in international migration since the end of the Cold War with a system that was designed for an earlier era.

He added: "We are in a state of transition from a paper-based system that was not designed for the problems we are facing towards a technologically-based system that seems to be on a horizon that never gets any nearer."

Mr Reid proposed creating a new "unique personal number" to keep track of anyone who came into contact with the criminal justice, immigration or asylum systems.

He also said that officials had been asked to devise a way to stop prisoners failing to declare their nationality - seen as a factor in the failure to deport some foreign criminals after their sentences.

Asked if the Home Office review meant that no one would lose their job in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND), Mr Reid said: "Don’t count on it." He added: "If there are people culpable, they will have to bear responsibility."

Mr Reid was also forced to explain and defend his own mini-reshuffle of Home Office ministerial posts announced yesterday in which he replaced Tony McNulty as Immigration Minister with Liam Byrne, putting Mr McNulty in charge of police restructuring.

After just two weeks at the Home Office, Mr Reid told the MPs that he did not think Government's largest department was "intrinsically dysfunctional" but he was willing to acknowledge its failures and work to resolve them.

"This is about leadership and a willingness to carry out the profound and wholesale transformation of the Home Office," he said. "I will do all I can to give that leadership.

"These are problems that can be resolved but I don't pretend to you that they are going to be resolved quickly."

In a written statement to the Commons before his Committee appearance, Mr Reid gave an update on the foreign prisoners released without due consideration for deportation.

According to the statement, 1,019 foreign prisoners were improperly released four less than previously thought. Of those 186 had been identified as serious offenders and 37 as "most serious" offenders, including murderers and rapists.

Of that latter group, 27 were now in prison, including all four murderers, and two were thought to be dead, leaving eight at large. Of the other 149 serious offenders, Mr Reid said that 66 were now "under our control", while six had been deported.

Mr Reid said that all 1,019 cases had now been assessed and that consideration for deportation had begun in 999 cases.

There had been initial decisions to deport in 778 cases - although 553 of those have yet to be tracked down. The Home Secretary said that 197 of the prisoners in question are currently in custody, one is electronically tagged, 10 are reporting regularly to the Immigration Service or Prison Service, and 37 have been deported or removed.

Lin Homer, director general of the IND, told the committee that more than 200 of the foreign prisoners had been reconvicted of other offences since their release.

Twenty of them had been convicted of "more serious offences", including six for sex crimes. A further 184 had been convicted of less serious offences, including burglary, drugs crimes, theft and fraud.

Times Recommends

• Milk: do we need a dairy godmother?
• DIY: the women doing it for themselves
• First double portrait of Princes unveiled