Darling, I Slipped a Disk...

...in the post, and it didn't turn up.

So, has the government has finally admitted that it doesn't know it's arse from its elbow? Stern questions have been asked. The Prime Minister even had to answer questions about this at Prime Minister's Question's in the House of Commons. Blimey, it's all go in Her Majesty's Government.

For those who don't follow politics (or have children) in the UK, here's a quick summary of what's happened. The Inland Revenue (or HMRC as it's now titled) copied the entire Child Benefit database onto CD-ROM and popped it in the post to the Audit Office. And it went missing en-route. OK, the disks were password protected, but that doesn't change the enormity of what happened.

So, what lessons can be learned? There are a couple that spring quickly to mind. Firstly, if a DVD-R disk had been used, it'd all have fitted on one disk; nobody uses CD's any more, it's just so 2002. Although hindsight shows this would have made matters worse because we'd now all be looking for a single disk rather than a pack of them.

Secondly, zipping up a database with a password algorithm isn't really that smart. It's much safer to use PGP and a properly long encryption key. OK, it might take an hour or three to run the algorithm over all the data before it's sent, but this at least gives the junior Civil Servant bod a chance to go for a cuppa and a fag. (Note to Americans, this means 'A Cup of Tea and a Cigarette').

So what's happened in reality? I think it's time to throw around a few conspiracy theories:

HMRC (or, to give them the full title: Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs - and they do have some odd customs) is feeling the burden of budget cuts. This is normal in Civil Service circles; we've all seen Yes Prime Minister during the 1980's and we know how Government Civil Servants manipulate the system to protect jobs. This could easily be a deliberate attempt to highlight the effect of cutbacks on the department. Some junior Civil Servant is entrusted with writing this stuff to disk, he does so, then pops the disk in a drawer and pretends they've been posted. When they don't arrive at the other end, they can blame the lot on cutbacks and not having enough staff. A great coup for the department (and I'd rule this out as wildly ridiculous if it weren't for report that multiple copies of this data were sent and they all went missing, which, I'm afraid, actually makes this conspiracy theory look rather plausible. All the copies will be in the desk drawer of a junior Civil Servant somewhere).

Maybe the person sending the CD's has be 'got' by the Royal Mail, who wanted to make the delivery company TNT look like chumps. It could be they're smarting because they're not delivering Government packages, and have tried to undermine their competition with a dirty tricks campaign. I'd only believe this, though, if the head of the Royal Mail had recently been recruited from British Airways...

I doubt very much that the disks will appear again for a while. You never know, they may be discovered by a small dog, and returned to Audit Office in time for the Child Benefit Review next April.

What would be really good in relation to this crisis would be for the government's description of the events to match those of the Civil Service department that have handed them this almighty cock-up. Come on, Mr Brown, was this done by a Junior Civil Servant (as you say) or by a Senior Civil Servant (which is what HMRC has said)?

So could everyone just quickly check behind your sofa, to see if the disks have fallen down there. And if you're in the Polish government, and you find these disks, could you just run a quick compare with your own child benefits arrangements database to find those individuals that are claiming Child Benefit in both our countries, and defrauding the system. Thanks.