PA Consulting has blamed its loss of the personal details of the entire UK prison population on a rogue employee in an apparent plea not to be kicked off any more big government contracts.

Jacqui Smith, in a decidedly un-wacky mood, gave the firm's £1.5m JTrack offender data deal the chop yesterday saying there had been a "clear breach" of its terms. She added that a further £8m of immigration, identity, and law enforcement contracts would be reviewed too.

The firm followed its grovelling by correctly pointing out that an array of government contractors seem incapable of keeping a lid on sensitive data. "PA has safely handled sensitive government information for over 60 years and this is the first incident of such a nature that PA has been involved in. It is clear from the events of recent weeks that the challenge of managing necessary confidential information held by government, and in particular of eliminating human error, is industry-wide," it said.

PA Consulting was too polite to mention that the civil service has made its own share of high-profile data gaffes recently.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were less sheepish. Both accused ministers of scapegoating the firm so that they are seen to be on top of information security. PA consulting also has a £19m contract advising the government on the ID cards scheme. Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve renewed the Tory call to scrap the project, saying the loss of prisoner data showed that the Home Office can't be trusted with data. ®

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• Labour minister says 14 year olds should get ID cards (23 September 2008)
• Home Office screws prison data bunglers (10 September 2008)
• Lag log leaks - Home Office contractor loses entire prison population (22 August 2008)
• Consultant 'army' already busy on UK ID card scheme (10 January 2005)
• PA Consulting (20 August 2002)