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22 Nov 2007
The head of the government's accounting watchdog claimed that efficiency savings led to the taxman's decision to send sensitive data on child benefit claimants.
Edward Leigh, Public Accounts Committee chairman, said that providing the child benefit information to the National Audit Office stripped of sensitive data was found to be too expensive a process, and would involve payments to its IT contractor, reported the FT.
Chancellor Alistair Darling yesterday insisted that the merger of the Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise, plus ensuing efficiency drive, was nothing to do with the loss of the child benefit data.
The FT also reported that NAO boss Sir John Bourn said senior managers at HMRC were also aware that the data would not be desensitised.
It had earlier been claimed that a junior member of HMRC staff had unilaterally put together the data onto two discs and sent it via internal post to the NAO.
Further reading:
Hartnett takes top job at HMRC
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Visitor comments Add your comment
PwC being brought in
This story gets worse and worse. Paying PwC millions to advise on data handling, when they and the other large firms have probably been paid multi-millions on advising the HMRC on efficiency measures in the first place!
Surely anyone with a modicum of common sense could put procedures in place for data handling that would protect the privacy of people.
If this data falls into the wrong hands it will take years to unravel and our children upon reaching the age of 18 will find that they have damaged credit records because their details have fallen into the wrong hands years ago.
What complete and utter idiots we entrust our information with!
Posted by: Red Dragon, 22 Nov 2007 | 00:00
Efficiency Drive
The PAC chairman is spot-on with his remarks.
If anyone bothered to talk to HMRC staff at local level the response would be that the loss of data was simply a matter of time. Cost cuts and efficiencies have morale at rock bottom and customer (I hesitate to use that phrase) service levels are poor.
Posted by: Howard, 22 Nov 2007 | 00:00