Theresa May took a political gamble today by scrapping the "troubled" UK Border Agency and taking personal charge of Britain's immigration controls.

The controversial organisation, which has faced concerted criticism since its creation five years ago, will be split into two parts reporting directly to ministers.

The Home Secretary was scathing about the failures of the arms-length agency, which she condemned as "closed, defensive and secretive".

Her surprise intervention was welcomed by MPs of all parties and will further fuel speculation over her ambitions to succeed David Cameron. But it also represents a high-risk move as she and her ministers will have to take responsibility for any failures or blunders in Britain's immigration system.

Just over a year ago, Mrs May hived off the border force from the UKBA following the disclosure that some passport checks had been secretly relaxed at time of maximum pressure at ports and airports.

But yesterday she went further by announcing the demise of the agency, which is sitting on a backlog of more than 300,000 unresolved asylum and immigration cases.

It will be divided into sections dealing with the visa system and with enforcing immigration laws, both of which will be accountable to her and to the Immigration Minister, Mark Harper.

The Home Secretary said: "The agency has been a troubled organisation since it was formed in 2008 and its performance is not good enough.

"In truth the agency was not set up to absorb the level of mass immigration that we saw under the last Government. This meant the agency has never had the space to modernise its structures and systems and get on top of its workload."

Mrs May said its sheer size meant it "all too often focuses on the crisis in hand at the expense of other important work" and condemned "its lack of transparency and accountability", as well as its inadequate computer systems.

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Theresa May's big gamble: 'Troubled' UK Border Agency scrapped and split in two as Home Secretary takes personal charge