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Home Office coughs to larger data loss
Another 250,000 records lunched
The Home Office has admitted to losing a quarter of a million more records than it originally thought.
The figure is revealed in its Resource Accounts for 2008-2009. PA Consulting lost a memory stick last September, which was originally reported to contain details on 127,000 people. In fact the stick, which remains lost, contained records on 377,000 people, Kable reveals.
The extra quarter of a million people are users of the Drugs Intervention Programme and are identified by initial, rather than full name, so shouldn't be at too much more risk of ID theft.
The original figures were for the entire 84,000-strong UK prison population, along with 10,000 frequent offenders and 33,000 people with at least six recordable offences.
PA lost that contract over the screw-up, but it remains the Home Office's favourite consultancy. The department paid PA £24.5m last year - up from £8.4m the year before - thanks to increased work on the National Identity Scam Scheme and the Interception Modernisation Programme, Kable notes.
Deloitte and Touche came in second place, with a pork barrel stuffed with £21m of our money. KPMG scored £16.2m, up from £4.6m in 2007-2008.
The full report is available here as an 89 page pdf. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
