A Serving of Fudge

Alastair darling served MP's up a generous portion of fudge yesterday, when he outlined the results of the Poynter review into the HMRC "Datagate" fiasco.

Seemingly the review is not yet finished.

How convenient!

"Let us wait and establish the facts rather than jump to conclusions."

Was Darling's response to detailed probings from MPs.

In the meantime, Poynter has come up with a few urgent recommendations.

HMRC will need a new organisational structure, simpler one with accountability at executive level.

A fair point, the trouble is "simplicity" and Gordon Brown simply do not go together.

Here are some his other recommendations, the pharse "bleeding obvious" springs to mind:

• A reminder to all staff from the Chairman of HMRC of the importance of data
  security with some specific guidance



• The appointment of a senior official to the new post of Director of Data
  Security



• The appointment of Data Guardians in each area of HMRC



• The imposition of a complete ban on the transfer of bulk data onto removable
  media without adequate security protection such as encryption



• The disabling of the download function on all personal and laptop computers
  in use across HMRC to prevent their use to download data onto removable
  media



• The utilisation of secure couriers and appropriate tamper proof packaging in
  the transport of bulk data stored on removable media

The full verdict on the failure HMRC's data procedures is due "in the first half" of next year. A standard ploy by government, designed to ensure that by then everyone will have lost interest in the subject.

Here is the Poynter Review in full (all 6 pages of it).

A nice little earner for the consultants!

By the way, let us be perfectly clear, the report is complete shite and a waste of our money (anyone who uses the phrases "world class" and "HMRC" in the same sentence is clearly out of his depth).

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