Well, the Minister - obviously. Except sucessive governments have been obliged by international treaties to outsource the very task that has gone wrong. This was outsourced on the basis of being done better by business. So who was responsible for the security of the data? Looking into public government records shows a wide range of people. None elected.
Sector Pan Government
Contract reference: CP/PFI/110
Status Current
Contract start 18 December 2003
Contract end 18 December 2028
Lead organisation MoD
Contract management approach Full Contract Management
Framework No
Contract Description Contract Description:
An archive services solution for government records, which has list X status. Service includes the deposit, secure storage, retrieval and next day delivery of records, including those protectively marked up to Secret. TNT has the capacity and experience to manage the uplift of multi-million quantities records from customer sites and also offers an accredited destruction service.
How to join:
For information on how to join the contract, contact the OGC Service Desk: T: 0845 000 4999 E:
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Suppliers:
TNT Archive Services.
Keywords Archive, records, archiving,
TNT were awarded this contract. TNT were awarded the contract on the basis of "secure storage, retrieval and next day delivery of records" clearly they have failed. There presence in all parts of government demonstrates that all government records are at risk.
Sector Pan Government
Contract reference: 868/001
Status Current
Contract start 1 April 2002
Contract end 31 March 2009
Potential extension period 3 x 12 months
Lead organisation DWP
Contract management approach Full Contract Management
Framework No
Contract Description Contract Description:
The contract provides for scheduled collections of mail / parcels and their delivery to Business addresses within the UK. The contract provides:Non-Documented Services where mail is transferred between sites on the contract, including a requirement for 98% of correctly addressed mail to be delivered by the next day.Documented Service for valuable or urgent items, including a full track and trace facility in items sent though the service. This service is available from any Business Address in the UK to any Business Address in the UK.
How to join:
For information on how to join the contract, contact the OGC Service Desk: T: 0845 000 4999 E:
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Suppliers:
TNT
Keywords Courier, distribution, parcel, delivery
Having achieved a foot in the door with the first contract, TNT now only guarantee 98% of items despite, "Documented Service for valuable or urgent items, including a full track and trace facility in items sent though the service." No wonder TNT are remaining quiet: they are responsible for the debacle. If they can just keep quiet while it blows over, ther will be no resignations and no loss of contract.
Sector Pan Government
Contract reference: Not applicable
Status Current
Contract start 1 April 2006
Contract end 31 March 2008
Potential extension period 24 months
Lead organisation OGC Buying Solutions
Contract management approach Full Contract Management
Framework Yes
Contract Description Contract Description:
A multi-source option encompassing 9 framework contracts for postal services, covering:
End to End postal delivery
Down stream Access (DSA)
Mail Consolidation
Secure Mail
Track and Trace
Response Services
Pre-sortation for inbound delivery
PO Boxes
Undeliverables
Redirection
Bespoke services tailored to individual customer needs
Public Sector organisations can contract under the frameworks for up to a 3 year period or 2 years after the expiry of the framework, whichever is the earlier.
How to join:
For information on how to join the contract, contact the OGC Service Desk:
T: 0845 000 4999 E:
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Suppliers:
DHL Global Mail; DX; Lynx Express; Royal Mail; Secure Mail Services; The Mailing House; TNT post; UK Mail.
Keywords Post, mail, delivery, distribution, domestic
Of course TNT are also asking to be allowed to carry domestic mail. Individuals do not have the clout of a Government department. So, unless the Government in the capacity of being servants of the people, dump TNT from sensitive contracts, they will simply carry on with the abysmal level of service.
This is not about political point scoring. This is about being practical. TNT are not fit for purpose in the Government sector. They advertise all sorts of promises in the above contractual descriptions and then fail to deliver. Because it is "business" they expect to negotiate their way out of censure. Let the Government minister take the flack. This is not good enough. The business service they provide is not good enough if it can lose twenty five million records. Their relationship should be terminated right now. No compensation and complete liability for any potential fraud against those 25 million people harmed by their failure to deliver the service they advertised.
There are too many private companies providing "better and cheaper" services to government. Their presence is a separate debate that should not distract from the central point: if private companies provide these services in to government then they too are responsible when it goes wrong. It is not about the kind of society we want and need but about what we have. If we have courier companies providing a service to government then they should accept being held to the same standard as the Government.
If any minister resigns and contracts are not cancelled, then it becomes patently obvious that the government has ceased to be run by consent for the common good and is being run by business for private profit. That might not suprise some people.
Comments
Hide the following 10 comments
Animal killers too
22.11.2007 15:10
Imaging what would happen if some of the blood and tissue samples from BOC went missing.
Former sequani worker
Formula
22.11.2007 18:20
Many artists have copied, some however have enhanced original sources. Originality is not given with a name. A name can even cause an automatic reaction from an earlier formed prejudice.
What's in a name? Our names are registered and state owned. Therefore the state can do as it likes with our identity and even take it away, which is already part of a formula. What is crucial is if the state serves our identity or the other way round. Identities are both bought and stolen.
Education has turned around certain priorities, making people useful to the state for money to money. And so there is no growth other than economic, as we can see from the increased number of obligatory child adults.
The state or a big corporation can take revenge if we criticise it, which does happen, especially in countries that don't discriminate between inner and outer identity, a form of materialism.
Materialism considers only the outer man, and is the key to his bondage and non-originality. The name of a person has two layers analogous to the terms nation and state, the nation being the organic side of a group, the state its outer formula.
A general confusion denying the soul and emphasising the personality has arisen from the choice towards materialism of the people authorising the state, and thereby authorising identity theft.
The only remedy to this impoverishment is real and organic identity, which needs no emotional recognition, and is free from theft. And this is exactly what the state seems to be afraid of as it seem to depend on that very selfishness expressed but not functioning in group form. The state is 70 per cent confined by business.
The emotions people have in these circumstances are often a fraud.
The individual identifies with the state from personal ambition and so has lost the way along with it.
Small and big thieves have an understanding among one another. Identity has been gradually abolished to such an extent that it is often hard to speak of identity theft, the rule of anonimity.
KH
good point
22.11.2007 21:45
a bit odd that the story's all been about the ineptitude of the person that posted the package and their bosses, and nothing (that I've seen anyway) about the company that was supposed to be responsible for 'internal' government mail.. hmm!
z
Why Ignore TNT?
23.11.2007 02:31
There are a number of reasons why TNT was awarded the contract to be courier for the Government. Not least was the award int 2002 of 7799:2 accreditiation. The first transportation company to achieve the British Standard 7799:2 Certificate for its information security systems. BS 7799:2 puts in place a set of standards, methods and practices that ensure that data is secure. Quite obviously that is an accreditation that should be reexamined. Ironically, this was accompanied by TNT Express introducing a “Proof of Delivery” service, which "proactively" offers customers consignment status information by email. The Government Mail Trail is probably a good deal more evident than the TNT Mail Trail. If TNT has the claimed processes in place then the items lost can be traced to the last TNT employee to handle them. That is the intention of 7799:2 accreditation: security of information.
TNT Employs a number of people to explain such things:
Pieter Schaffels
Director Media Relations
Tel : +31 20 500 61 71
Cyrille Gibot
Senior Press Officer
Tel: +31 20 500 62 23
Daphne Andriesse
Senior Press Officer
Tel: +31 20 500 62 24
Marc Potma
Communications Network Manager
Tel: +31 20 500 61 38
Marianne Reber
Assistant Media Relations
Tel: +31 20 500 62 21
All of whom should be happy to explain how they have kept their business out of the public eye in this matter. Being closest to the business they are best placed to explain without speculation. They might even be able to explain how tracking fails to work in a company that prides itself on such matters.
Since this is a courier service employed by the public they might wish to explain their activities. This would also be in accordance with their Corporate Responsibility statements.
By the end of 2007, all of TNT will be certified to the following standards: Investors in People, ISO 9001 (for operational excellence), ISO 14001 (for environmental management), OHSAS 18001(for work place safety) and SA 8000 (for social responsibility). It would be prudent for TNT to demonstrate that such certification is not simply an expedience for obtaining Government contracts by providing the kind of standards of open freedom of information that the Government is expected to provide. It is inadequate to argue "commercial" or "business" confidentiality when such a large public interest is at stake.
Former TNT Employee
Is TNT is owned by a Northern Rock Bidder?
23.11.2007 19:07
Former TNT Employee
Openminded
24.11.2007 09:33
DH
Double Dutch
24.11.2007 11:16
JDH
Spinoza
24.11.2007 12:53
Baruch Spinoza (a 17th century Catholic Portuguese refugee who became Jewish - again - in the Netherlands) wrote about the logic of truth (and therefore authenticity) and became a symbol of Dutch tolerance. He was employed by the Dutch in their seeking independence, unfortunately executed by their opponent, and published after his death, but nearly all that he has written was allegedly copied from his teacher Van den Ende.
His identity could be said to have been stolen but also given by the state. In fact his name was linked to the very establishment of that state.
I would not call Spinoza a thief.
Although, he may have written down and put together intelligently what he had heard, which maybe no one else could in this way, and still be set up.
His identity has attracted contemporary attention revealing the political element of tolerance not only in the state of the Netherlands today, but also elsewhere, and of identity, real or not.
Jaap den Haan
Self interest
25.11.2007 13:50
If TNT are found to be at fault we can get rid of them and get another company to do the work. Even if TNT are at fault, the real fault would lie with the incompetent public employees who awarded them the contract. As the matter stands there is no evidence whatsoever that TNT are at fault. One thing is for sure, when government employees are found to be at fault, we are stuck with them for ever. They are notoriously unsackable however useless they are or however often they ring in sick.
In my experience of working in government offices they mainly seem to be refuges for those unemployable elsewhere, especially those on lower grades. Being off sick, moaning about low morale and convincing themselves they could earn much more elsewhere take up most of their time. If there is any time left over, they might do a bit of work.
My last short stint working as a contractor in a government office was just before last Christmas. They were all moaning about the cruel decision, taken a few years earlier, to scrap their taxpayer funded Christmas shopping day off work in December! They expressed concern that the same might happen to their day off for the Queen's birthday and the half day for Maunday Thursday! What a bunch of slackers.
simon
TNT
25.11.2007 15:05
sherman