The amazingly efficient British government has LOST two computer discs containing all the personal and private information on every family in the UK!
Yes you read correctly - name, address, dates of birth national insurance numbers, bank account details, child benefit numbers - EVERYTHING!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7103566.stm

This will be the end of the Labour Government - there will be riots outside westminster over this ........ dear oh dear oh dear - what are this bunch of IDIOTS going to mess up next!

As a former Officer (i.e. Dogsbody) of Customs and Excise, the only thing I find surprising about all this is that the Chairman has resigned!

I'm tempted to eke out my retirement income by opening a book on which statutory body or PFI-rich company will find a cushy billet for him.

Oh, that's hilarious! Now no-one over there can blackmail me on anything, bwahahaha!

Well I would hardly call it hilarious, for the 25 million people whose personal and private details are now goodness knows where, and possibly being looked at by people with criminal intentions!

Disgraceful and shameful rather than hilarious , I reckon.

I know computer discs can hold alot of information, but can all the information for the entire country listed in the first post fit on only two discs.

The total population of UK is around 60 million I believe.
The information on the discs however, is concerning those families with children under 16 - those that claim "Child Benefit", which is a tax free supplement paid to EVERY family with a child, regardless of status or wealth.
And yes Barracuda, that info could easily be stored on 2 standard computer discs.

Of course it doesn't help that there is still the backlog of the postal strike. I laughed today when I hard on the new that it is probable that they are still on government property, in other words stuck in a mail backlog.

That Sue, was just a pathetic attempt by an incompetant government to convince us everything is OK.

The underlying problem still remains - the Inland Revenue service is in tatters due to bad administration by this current government - and guess whose fault it was - the former chancellor of the exchequer, who is NOW our Prime Minister!

Never mind "God bless America" - how about "God HELP UK" ..........

Apparently the disks were supposed to be sent by the HMRC "internal mail", which seems to be a contract with TNT; so they wouldn't have been delayed by the postal strike. Of course, it's possible that they never got on to TNT's truck and are still lurking somewhere in the Washington child benefit office. Equally, I suppose, it's possible that they have ended up in any of the offices that TNT serves.

There are reports of e-mails between the National Audit Office (NAO) and HMRC. According to these reports, the NAO told HMRC something like "We don't need all those bank details and stuff; just send us the kids' names and the National Insurance numbers." But HMRC said it would be much too expensive to strip out bits and pieces from the data; they would have to send it all just as it was. As an ex-employee I find this entirely credible: it's what our managers used to call a "value for money" approach. Next time you hear that phrase from a public service manager, remember that this is the sort of thing they're talking about.