Child benefit: Civil servant’s error led to fiasco

The unnamed official, working at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) offices just outside Newcastle, had put the personal details of 25 million people into the internal mail.

	Police officers search the Child Benefits Agency offices for the missing compact discs

It was neither recorded nor registered, meaning it was treated simply as another piece of the 100,000 items of mail handled every night by the contracted couriers, TNT. It was destined for the National Audit Office (NAO) in central London, 278 miles away, but it never arrived.

Hundreds of police officers are now on its trail. Detectives do not know if the data is in the hands of a criminal, lost on a roadside, or, indeed, if it ever left the office in Newcastle.

One police source said: “We don’t know when it was lost, let alone where. We’re looking for a needle in a hundred haystacks.”

The series of blunders had their origin in March, when complacency and laziness about the security of personal data was first evident.

A junior official had supplied a full copy of Revenue and Customs’ child benefit data to London, by post, where it was audited and returned. They had broken the rules about how to transport sensitive records but it seemed they had got away with it.

In October, the NAO asked again for information from the child benefit database.

On Oct 18, the civil servant put two password-protected discs into an envelope at the office in Waterview Park, Washington, Tyne and Wear.

It is assumed they were put into the internal mail basket. A van driver, working for TNT, made the daily pick-up of general mail.

It was organised into destinations and delivered. No other post was reported lost.

But as Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, embarrassingly admitted to the Commons yesterday: “It appears the data has failed to reach the addressee in the NAO.”

The initial security lapse was exacerbated by the authority’s reaction to the loss. Only on Nov 8, three weeks later, was it reported to senior management.

In that time, a further copy of the data was sent, which this time arrived.

The civil servant believed the package was delayed by the postal strike or an NAO move and “hoped it would turn up” and kept quiet, an HMRC spokesman said.

On Nov 10, Mr Darling was finally informed that the original copy had not shown up. The Chancellor was perhaps given the impression that HMRC were close to tracking it down but when there was still no news on Nov 14, he ordered them to call in the police.

The Metropolitan Police said they were only alerted the next day - last Thursday - and officers were handed the lead in the investigation on Sunday - a full month since the loss.

In an indication of how seriously it is being taken, the search is being led by Acting Assistant Commissioner Janet Williams, a specialist in organised crime is a former commander of Special Branch.

It is understood that the civil servant has been interviewed, along with other office members, TNT staff and Audit Office officials.

Police are also searching the NAO premises in Victoria, central London.

The Met said: “Active inquiries are being made to try to recover the data.”