By Nick Heath, 18 July 2008 15:51
NEWS
The taxpayer has been landed with a £473,544 bill for the hunt for the missing HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) data discs.
The Metropolitan Police Service mounted a months-long search for the data discs containing 25 million child benefit records after they went missing in October 2007.
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Financial minister Jane Kennedy revealed the costs in a written answer to parliament.
The Met has said it will try to recover the full costs from the HMRC for what is thought to be the most expensive lost property inquiry in the UK.
The search for the CDs was wound down in January with an expectation that the discs will probably never be recovered.
At the investigation's peak, 47 detectives from the Met's Specialist and Economic Crime Command took part in the hunt.
Police are believed to have searched National Audit Office buildings, two HMRC premises and other government buildings, the Royal Mail depot in Belfast, four TNT depots and a rubbish tip in Kent, with the main search concluding on 5 December 2007.
The revelation was made in the wake of figures showing that Paul Gray, chairman of HMRC at the time the discs went missing, received a pay out of £137,591 on quitting last November.
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. Karen Challinor
"The taxpayer has been landed with a £473,544 bill for the hunt for the missing HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) data discs"
what a surprise, you and I have to stump up for government incompetence yet again
here's an idea, take it out of the funds earmarked for the NIR/ID card scheme because there's no way in hell I'm enrolling and trusting the government with the cradle to grave information of my life after the HMRC debacle
2. Captain Sensible
Must be a slow news week.
What's the story here ... exactly?
The taxpayers pay for the Gvt to look for lost data. Gosh. Well who did we expect to pay for the Gvt?
Who cares if the police claim the 'cost' back? It's just shuffling between different Gvt budgets - with more expense to fund the squabbling over which department 'pays'.
3. Richard Davies
This is a disgrace. To add insult to injury they haven't even managed to find the discs?!?!
This money should NOT come out of the tax payers pocket. We didn't create this mess the government did (again).
How many more incidents like this do we have to accept before someone does something about it?
We now constantly accept these massive incidents as long as there is a public enquiry afterwards.
Forget public inquiries...don't let it happen in the first place. Governments probably don't care if things go wrong anymore because the consequences for them if it does, are just not serious enough.
Scrap the ID Card scheme as thats more wasted money...at a time when we need every penny we have.
4. anonymous
Even better - take it out of the "performance" bonuses that all these top civil servants manage to earn, even when everyting goes belly up!
5. Roy Corneloues
The should've insisted on a "no win - no fee" policy ;-)
6. Roger Browne
Given the money has been spent this is indeed (just?) an argument about whose budget suffers. Two questions emerge however: 1) Was the seriousness of the crime such that this amount of spend was justified, and 2) was any account taken of the likelihood of success in determining the level and length of the investigation?