More CDs lost in the post

[Peter Tomlinson]

BBC1 Ceefax p115 reports 'Court case data CDs lost in post' (1600 
23/1/08). It was registered post!

That reminded me about Government Connect, a programme to provide secure 
email for all public sector organisations and also their 'clients' (all 
organisations with which they exchange data that needs to be kept secure 
within DPA definitions - e.g. nursing homes). Once this is deployed, the 
moving of data on CDs should stop.

At www.govconnect.gov.uk/ :
"Government Connect is a programme led by local authorities, the 
Department for Communities and Local Government and the Cabinet Office. 
It is building a common infrastructure to enable secure electronic 
interactions between local government, central government and citizens."

The Govt Connect scheme involves gateway boxes in LA data centres [1]. 
How it is intended to be implemented in the privately owned care home 
where my mother lives, where there is just one PC on an ADSL link, I do 
not know.

Govt Connect operates outside the Govt Gateway (GG) network. Now I 
believe I read that responsibility for GG is likely to be transferred to 
DWP, and sure enough a Google search turns up:

http://www.accountancyage.com/computing/news/2198554/whitehall-plans-web-accounts-3466942

13/9/07

"The running of the DirectGov <http://www.directgov.gov.uk/> portal has 
already been taken over by the Department for Work and Pensions 
<http://www.dwp.gov.uk/> (DWP). And similar discussions are now under 
way about the Government Gateway authentication service ­ used for a 
variety of citizen-to-government transactions including online tax 
returns, driving licence applications and pension forecasts."

"Negotiations are continuing to establish whether Government Gateway 
<http://www.gateway.gov.uk/> is best taken on by DWP or HM Revenue & 
Customs <http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/>."

"DWP is emerging as the favourite because of the tie-up with DirectGov, 
according to sources close to the discussions."

We live in interesting times...

Peter

[1] I was told that Cable & Wireless, who I believe are implementing the 
boxes and the links to them from central govt networks, is modelling the 
boxes on the aborted project to provide secure links between the police 
and the LA data centres.