ICAEW tries so hard to be polite when I know behind closed doors they're fuming at the 25 million person data loss. Not because of the loss but the damage the incident does. But even then ICAEW gets it soooo wrong. First up, the Tax Faculty is commenting. Why? Nothing to do with them. This should be the IT Faculty. Second - they point to:
There is clearly a need for a formal and independent inquiry into this incident and we welcome the Poynter Review of HMRC's handling of confidential data. However, we suspect that the causes are likely to be deep-rooted and point to the need for a much wider reform of HMRC's management and operational practices. We are concerned that cost-cutting pressures have caused serious operational problems. HMRC and Government need urgently to rethink the approach to service delivery to ensure that problems such as this do not recur.
Well yes - but as Richard Murphy might say - that's like News: man bites dog. We could all say that and keep PwC gainfully (OK - maybe not) employed with producing deep and meaningless strategy documents which will surely be the outcome.
The fact is this is an elemental failure. It is easily fixed and at very low cost. Get that job done and THEN worry about fixing strategy. Even then I guarantee that no more than £10K on consulting would do the job. Ask Mark Whitehorn. I know Mark and he is a seriously bright chap. He wrote the definitive tome on DB2. I've edited his 'stuff.' He may not have PwC or KPMG slapped on his forehead but he has a reputation among geeks the Big Four can only envy.
Which brings me to another equally important point. Reputation and brand are NOT the same thing.
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