Lost benefit data: what went wrong?
Updated on 21 November 2007
With 25 million records missing, it emerges the National Audit Office hadn't even requested the entire database from HMRC.
If it wasn't bad enough burning sensitive information onto two CDs and sending them by courier to an office 300 miles away. Channel 4 News has been told that the National Audit Office (NAO), which had requested information about child benefit claimants from Revenue and Customs (HMRC), hadn't even asked for people's bank account details.
Nor had the NAO requested the entire child benefit database - which encompasses a staggering 25 million people.
The National Audit Office says it wanted the stripped-down database so it could go through it to choose a selection of child benefit records for more detailed examination, to check they'd been handled properly and for signs of fraud.
Ironically, even though they had had the full database, NAO staff had to travel to HMRC offices to look at those complete entries - for security reasons, because the information was so sensitive.
Tory claims
Tonight, the Conservatives claimed the decision not to remove sensitive details from the database was given in an email from a senior business manager within Revenue and Customs who copied in a more senior Assistant Director.
The reason: that desentizising the information would require extra payment to the data service provider, Aspire, because it was outside the data management contract.
Department in chaos
Both unions and users of its services say Revenue and Customs is a department in chaos, trying to come to terms with demands, introduced by Gordon Brown, for swinging cuts which will mean the loss of 25,000 jobs.
Tonight, HMRC had no comment on these latest allegations, which the Tories say come in a briefing from no less than the chairman of the National Audit Office Sir John Bourne. The HMRC would only say that an investigation was still under way.
Timeline
13 March 2007: On 13 March, the NAO sent an email to HMRC, asking for the Child Benefit database as part of its annual audit.
It specifically asked that sensitive details be taken out, saying it only needed the names of children, the child benefit number and the National Insurance number. It did not want to see details of the parents, their addresses, or any bank and building society details.
The HMRC refused to make those deletions. According to the NAO, it was "...too burdensome..." to filter out the sensitive information and that it would send the complete database.
March/April 2007: That time, they got away with it. The data was sent, insecurely, to the NAO who returned the CDs in April.
October: In October, the NAO begins its audit for the current year and asks for the same Child Benefit data.
18 October
Again, an HMRC official copies the database onto two discs and sends the data off, using their own internal postal service operated by TNT.
24 October
Six days later, the NAO tells the HMRC that the discs haven't arrived. HMRC sends a second copy of the data, this time registered, which arrives the following day.
5 November: It is nearly two weeks until the Revenue contacts NAO by email, asking whether the missing discs have turned up.
8 November: Three days later, HMRC tells NAO it is raising a formal security alert and senior HMRC staff are told of the loss.
10 November: Chancellor Alistair Darling is informed of the loss.
