Wirral Council spent £6,950 for 10 days of IT support for councillors & £7,498.48 on a family planning course

Wirral Council spent £6,950 for 10 days of IT support for councillors & £7,498.48 on a family planning course

Wirral Council spent £6,950 for 10 days of IT support for councillors & £7,498.48 on a family planning course

                                  

Wirral Host of the Open Championship 2014
Wirral Host of the Open Championship 2014

As one of the new requirements of The Local Government (Transparency Requirements) (England) Regulations 2015 Wirral Council are required to publish certain types of information specified in the Local Government Transparency Code 2015.

Wirral Council published on the 14th May 2015 details of contracts, commissioned activity, purchase orders, framework agreements and any other legally enforceable agreement of between £5,000 and £10,000 on the data.gov.uk website here.

The first contract that caught my eye was one for £6,950 with Odgers Interim (which if you remember a previous blog post of mine is an organisation that provides agency staff). The title of the contract is “consultancy support of Windows 7 & ICT Services” and its description is “10 Days Consultancy in Support of Windows 7 & ICT services to Elected Members Total £6,950.00”. Elected Members means councillors.

Wirral Council also spent £5,000 with England’s Golf Coast Limited for “Annual Membership to England’s Golf Coast”, £6,812.30 with an organisation called Assist Managed Services for a week of cleaning up New Brighton in July 2014, £5,000 with a company called O’Neill PR based in Macclesfield for “Tourism PR at the Open Golf Championship 2014”, £5,854.45 for catering at a wedding on the 16th August 2014 to a Skelmersdale based catering company (although this will have been recharged to whoever paid for the wedding), £8,000 to AMION Consulting Limited for “Development of a vision for Wirral’s tourism strategy to sustain and grow the Borough’s visitor economy” described as for “developing a vision for Wirral’s Tourism businesses a 5 year strategy for the Borough’s visitor economy”, £9,847.80 to Huck Nets Limited for a piece of play equipment called a Birds Nest Tree at Diamond Farm, Saughall Massie, £7,498.48 to Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for a “Family Planning Course”, £7,597.13 for a “Viking Playship” from Hags-SMP Limited, £6,510.00 to H&G Healthcare Limited for 100 “flu vaccination vouchers” in October 2014, £6,533.99 to AECOM Limited for a “Wirral Docks Bridge Feasibility Study” and £9,570 to Exterion Media (UK) Ltd to “supply poster sites for the Wonders of Wirral Spring Campaign”.

Whereas I’m generally a fan of increased transparency involving Wirral Council, in the description field published on the data.gov.uk website about a payment for £9,275.74 to Autism Initiatives, Wirral Council have included the full name of the child or adult with autism. In the context of services provided by Autism Initiatives this would also be classed as “sensitive personal information”. Also in two payments to West Kirby Residential School (a special school) for school fees, Wirral Council have revealed the name of two children by the information published on the website. Again in the context this would be classed as “sensitive personal information”. Maybe Wirral Council needs to think again whether it is being too transparent in these sensitive areas?

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ICO rules Wirral Council breached Data Protection Act over blunders and insists on further undertaking

ICO rules Wirral Council breached Data Protection Act over blunders and insists on further undertaking

ICO rules Wirral Council breached Data Protection Act over blunders and insists on further undertaking

                      

Wirral Council are in trouble with the Information Commissioner’s Office again over yet another set of blunders. This time they sent “sensitive personal information” to the wrong address (multiple times) which in one case included details of a criminal offence. The mistakes happened in February and again in April of this year.

The Information Commissioner’s Office is also aware of three previous disclosure incidents reported to them over the past sixteen months. Prior to this period there was the incident where Wirral Council accidentally published a whistleblower’s name on their website.

When the Information Commissioner’s Office investigated, they found that Wirral council had “no mandatory data protection training in place for staff and did not have adequate checks in place to make sure records were being sent to the correct address”.

Information Commissioner’s Office Head of Enforcement, Stephen Eckersley, said:

“While human error was a factor in each of these cases, the council should have done more to keep the information secure. Social workers routinely handle sensitive information and Wirral Borough Council failed to ensure their staff received adequate training on how to keep people’s information secure.

“We are pleased that the council has now made its data protection training mandatory for all staff following these incidents and has agreed to take further action to address the underlying problems that led to these mistakes. This includes ensuring that all staff complete the data protection training by the end of June and adequate checks are in place to make sure sensitive records are being sent to the right address.”

Wirral Council’s Chief Executive Graham Burgess has had to sign an undertaking that Wirral Council will change and do better in the future. Last year Wirral Council had to sign a similar undertaking after their poor performance with Freedom of Information Act requests following concerns raised by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Joe Blott, Wirral’s Strategic Director of Transformation and Resources, said “We take these matters very seriously. As soon as we discovered the errors, we self-referred to the ICO and took immediate steps to discover what went wrong, and make sure we do what is necessary to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

We have taken on board the ICO’s concerns, and have improved our data protection compliance. This has included training for staff with access to confidential and sensitive data, and a re-iteration of how we can and should endeavour to keep confidential information safe.”

Original sources:
ICO Press release 15th April 2014 “Merseyside council agrees to improve practices after social service records sent to the wrong address”
Wirral Council press release 15th April 2014 Council commits to improve data protection following Information Commissioner’s ruling

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