Inside an office of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) in south London, a group of senior officials gathered nine days ago to discuss how they were going to handle the latest crisis.

They had spent three weeks under fire after ministers had been forced to admit that more than 1,000 foreign criminals were on the streets instead of being deported.

Then Dave Roberts, one of IND’s most senior directors, had brought further humiliation on the department by admitting to MPs that he had not the “faintest idea” how many illegal immigrants were in the country.

That Friday the civil servants were reeling from yet another shambles: five cleaners working in the Home Office had been arrested as illegal immigrants from Nigeria.

As they gathered to discuss their woes, however, a nightmare of different proportions was top of their agenda: what to do about their new boss, John Reid, the home secretary who was once dubbed Labour’s “attack dog”.

According to a well placed insider: “There was a discussion about the difficulties the new chap was causing, his lack of understanding of the complexities of the process involved at IND and therefore the real reasons why IND was unable to manage.

“They wanted to know what could be done to make sure he didn’t rock the boat too much. It wasn’t exactly a mutiny, but they were trying to work out a strategy to manage him, if not to undermine him, because they were angry that he was exposing the IND to too much scrutiny.”

Unknown to the officials, their problems were only just beginning. Four days later the new home secretary postponed an important speech that he was due to make to the Association of Chief Police Officers, so that he could address the Commons home affairs committee instead.

The session opened calmly enough with Reid telling MPs about his department’s success in cutting the asylum waiting list, but then came the hitman’s bombshell.

“However, I want to be straight with the committee today . . . because I believe that, despite these advances . . . our system is not fit for purpose.”

Leadership, management and information systems were all “inadequate”, added Reid for good measure. It was an extraordinary admission for the head of one of Britain’s great departments of state.

Senior departmental officials sitting alongside Reid looked gobsmacked. They were Sir David Normington, the permanent secretary, Lin Homer, director-general of the IND, and Helen Edwards, chief executive of the National Offender Management Service.

No matter that they, too, had been in their posts only a few months: their boss had publicly accused them, or at least their staff, of not being up to their jobs. Reid had effectively declared war on his own department.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Postmen: We bind the nation together
• Tewkesbury: when the memories flood back
• Cast Offs actress: I’m happy that my face fits