More data blunders... but still no-one is to blame

By Jayne Warren - 14/01/2008

Just as the government and police announced that it has 'given up' the extremely expensive search for the two CDs containing the missing data of 25 million people - still more civil service mistakes keep emerging.

 

But why is it that no-one is ever penalised or called to account?

This latest blunder consists of nearly 10,000 council bill payments wrongly taken from bank accounts by Hull City Council following a "computer error". In fact the Council has admitted taking twice the amount it should from an 'unknown number of accounts'. It has subsequently set up 'emergency cash centres' in the city to refund people who are facing cashflow problems as a result of the blunder - presumably at the taxpayer's expense.

The council said immediate action was taken to halt the bank debits when the mistakes were spotted on Wednesday January 9th. In a statement, the council - note there is never a named person, just faceless anonymity - said the error "resulted in electronic payments of council bills being duplicated and taken a second time from some customers' accounts". It added: "Approximately 9,500 payments are involved." The council also did not say how much money in total was taken from bank accounts or how many individuals were affected.

Those who have been affected had to apply at the city treasury building or council cash offices, based in customer service centres and housing offices, from 10am on Friday 11th. I wonder how many people were at work, or who had to take time off to sort out the council's mistake?

One ratepayer was horrified to discover that seven duplicated payments were taken from her account without her authority, totalling £378.89. She said: "How can they just go into my account and do this without my knowledge or consent?"

Not surprisingly, a lot of people may have been thrown into overdraft - thereby incurring bank charges. The council have promised to refund such charges - but then again, how much chaos has it caused in what is traditionally the most difficult month of the year financially? And what about some older people who may not be able to check their accounts online?

But yet again we ask the same question: why is no-one accountable, and what is wrong with creating incentives to stop such mistakes happening again? Such as docking a percentage of wages from those in the department responsible at Hull City Council? It might make them think twice...