Home Office sacks data loss company

12 April 2012

The company which lost the personal details of thousands of criminals has had its contract terminated by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

PA Consulting's £1.5 million three-year deal with the Home Office was binned after it mislaid a computer "memory stick" containing the names, addresses and expected release dates of 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales.

The chairman of the Commons' Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz called for the company to lose all its Government contracts, thought to run to tens of millions of pounds a year.

"This firm obviously has some serious procedural failures and therefore should not hold any contracts for any Government work," he said.

"This means that PA Consulting should have their contract to work on the ID card scheme removed immediately."

Ms Smith said all PA Consulting's contracts with the Home Office - worth £8 million a year - would be reviewed, along with those signed with other firms.

The findings would be fed into a Cabinet Office review of all contracts signed by the Government with private companies to ensure they were "appropriate", she added.

"Our contract had stipulated the sort of security provisions that needed to be in place and that had not happened," the Home Secretary said. "We are cancelling this contract and we are urgently reviewing the way in which PA Consulting are meeting the requirements of other contracts we have with them."

Apart from the 84,000 prisoner details, the lost computer hardware also contained the names, addresses and dates of birth of 30,000 people with six or more convictions in the last year, as well as the names and dates of birth of 10,000 criminals regarded as prolific offenders. It also carried the initials of people on drug treatment programmes.

The memory stick was left in an unlocked drawer in an unsecured office at its offices in Victoria, central London.

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