Private Eye (article not online) takes a look at the causes of the lost discs scandal last year. It says the blame for the crisis lies with the management consultants charged with the amalgamation of Revenue and Customs. Management consultants are running half of Whitehall these days, and in his excellent book, Plundering the Public Sector, David Craig shows how New Labour has let billions of public money meant for frontline services go into making rich people even richer.
Here Nick Cohen takes a look at the faulty processes the consultants instigated, which involved a series of repetitive tasks that stifled initiative. Cohen writes, ‘Modestly paid employees who are told they can only look at one page of a tax return are unlikely to care overmuch about fraud.’ And the Eye seems to agree: ‘In practice junior jobs have been rendered menial to the point of mindlessness and morale has plummeted so that nobody bothers to ask how 25m people’s personal details should be handled.’
There is a funny side to this though. Showing a laughable ignorance of data protection issues, death-machine enthusiast Jeremy Clarkson said in his Sun column that the story was (to quote the BBC) a ‘fuss about nothing.’
Clarkson published details of his Barclays account in the Sun newspaper, including his account number and sort code. He even told people how to find out his address. “All you’ll be able to do with them is put money into my account. Not take it out. Honestly, I’ve never known such a palaver about nothing,” he told readers.
But he was proved wrong, as the 47-year-old wrote in his Sunday Times column.
“I opened my bank statement this morning to find out that someone has set up a direct debit which automatically takes £500 from my account,” he said.
“The bank cannot find out who did this because of the Data Protection Act and they cannot stop it from happening again.
“I was wrong and I have been punished for my mistake.”
What I find hilarious is that the money taken from his account was used to set up a £500 payment to the charity Diabetes UK.
This suggests that the fraudster took the cash merely to prove Clarkson wrong, rather than for personal gain. It also means Clarkson will look bad if he tries to reclaim the £500.
Clarkson now says: ‘Contrary to what I said at the time, we must go after the idiots who lost the discs and stick cocktail sticks in their eyes until they beg for mercy.’
Not much chance of that happening – the director of child benefit who presided over the whole debacle has just been given a CBE!
(Via Anthony Cox’s Facebook page)
