Government loses 15m people's personal data

[Koolpc]

Got our letter today!

[Saracen]

A friend got his yesterday (Thursday).

[Whiternoise]

I (well my mum) got mine on Tuesday i think

[manwithnoname]

To anyone who has a letter, how useful to fraudsters is the letter what info does it include - just wondering how clever the HMRC have been sending 15million letters?

[nichomach]

The answer to that would appear to be "Effing stupid"; it certainly includes full name address and NI number which is a good leg-up. My wife received hers today; she was more put out, however, that an official government communication is so poorly written that it includes a sentence that starts with "And". Go figure...

[mycarsavw]

Still no letter here - <insert derogatory term here>

[Cozwin]

Did anyone else get the standard apoligy letter from HMRC over the weekend ?

i got one

[G4Z]

Just wondered if anybody had seen this story?

Ex-HMRC boss gets shiny new civil service post | The Register

So, the guy that stepped down has been given a new job (instead of being paid to sit at home) and...

'It emerged at the weekend that the Department of Work and Pensions may have lost another unencrypted CD containing details of 40,000 housing benefit claimants. The disc was sent by courier to a West Yorkshire council.'

This one seems to have been kept out of the mainstream news as this is the first I have heard. I mean what the hell goes on with people in the civil service that makes them think sending stuff unencrypted via the mail is 'best practise'? If they lost this AFTER the HMRC fiasco I will be simply speechless.

So what do you all make of that and the whole "special projects to develop civil service skills" thing?

[Saracen]

Just wondered if anybody had seen this story? .....

Yup. It was on the TV a day or two back. Probably Newsnight, maybe C4 News.

According to that story, he's got this new job, and so still retains his £200,000/year salary.


So let me see if I understand this. He resigns because he's taking responsiblity for a monumental cockup that happened under his watch at HMRC, thereby doing the "honourable thing", and about 10 minutes later is back in another cushy government number. So much for taking responsibility for the cockup.

Of course, this is all based on a TV news story, so comes with the usual caveats about media accuracy, etc, but it certainly does strike me as being about what I'd expect.

[nichomach]

He doesn't retain his salary because of the new job, he would have retained the salary anyway; he's just actually going to be doing some work (he didn't have to) while he receives it. Personally, I'd say that's more in his favour than against him.

[G4Z]

Yeah that is why I included the bit in brackets 'instead of sitting at home'. I am not sure how I feel about it to be honest, I suspect this appointment will lead to another one next year after his contract runs out and if that happens I will be thinking along similar lines to Saracen. At this point though I think its better to get some work out of him, although I am really not sure what useful work anybody at that level does for the obscene amount of cash. Other than take responsabillity for screw ups that occur on your watch, frankly I wish somebody would give me a job like that.

[nichomach]

Well, it's rather like wondering what an extremely highly paid CEO does to earn the cash, isn't it? I mean we argue that "they make a company perform better, so they get the big bucks", but in reality we see stories at least every other week of some senior director type who's made a complete balls-up but still gets a gold ejector seat...

[G4Z]

Well, if we are honest we are simply jealous aren't we?

I mean, who wouldn't want a job where the idea of taking responsabillity involves leaving the office immediately with a big fat cheque as soon as you screw up badly enough? To me that is nothing but incentive to do the worst job possible, I hate working and if I could make a million by screwing up at work, well... I wouldn't be sat here at work right now.

[Saracen]

He doesn't retain his salary because of the new job, he would have retained the salary anyway; he's just actually going to be doing some work (he didn't have to) while he receives it. Personally, I'd say that's more in his favour than against him.

Indeed. I commented some time ago that my respect for him "resigning" so promptly was rather mitigated when it came out a couple of days after his resignation that he'd be doing it on full pay "pending retirement".

Can I quit now and still get full pay until retirement, please? I'll cock something up badly if really necessary.

My problem isn't that he's doing work when he doesn't have to, but that the whole thing makes a mockery of having "resigned" to take responsibility.

[G4Z]

Another related story I thought you might all find interesting :

Mum's fears over security blunder - ChronicleLive

[Agent]

He doesn't retain his salary because of the new job, he would have retained the salary anyway; he's just actually going to be doing some work (he didn't have to) while he receives it. Personally, I'd say that's more in his favour than against him.

Call me cynical here, but I'd be very surprised if this wasn't arranged before hand