It seems that HMRC confirmed at the weekend that there are six more missing computer disks missing between Preston and London.

The saga strikes of a complete shambles now frankly but as I commented in my original post on this subject this is just the tip of the iceberg. Worse is still to come for sure and plenty more bad news. There is almost certainly without doubt other missing data that HMRC can't find as it is clear their proceedures are a waste of time and simply not followed. They don't even know who to blame a "junior" or some at management level. No one is responsible. The Chairman resigned but who is actually responsible for data protection at HMRC. As this is potentially a criminal offence (Data Protection Act) presumably the Information Controller or the Police will be reporting at some point about possible prosecutions?  

The cost of the numberous missing data is all being footed by the Taxpayer and there is even a row going on between the Banks and the Government as too who is liable to foot the compensation bills in the even of fraud arising from the use by criminals of the missing data. The banks has written to Alistair Darling stating that they will initially reimburse customers however they will be seeking recompense from the Government. Alistair Darling is yet to respond to the banks.

On top of this we have clearly in excess of 100 police, and no dount hundreds of HMRC staff searching for the missing disks. The cost of this is likely to be in excess of £50,000 in wages alone no doubt substantially more. If you take into account other expenses like overheads travel, phone calls and the like it will not doubt have cost the UK taxpayer a vast amount of wasted money (as per usual).

The sorry saga is very likely to go on for a further month so the basic cost to the taxpayer of the time spent on this issue will easily be in excess of £1.5 Million a month (probably double this due to the senior civil servants involved as I have based my cost calculation on Just £150 per day wages. MPs and senior civil servants wages are likely to be substantially in excess of this).

Then comes the Public Enquiries and Investigations into this sorry affair. The cost of those alone will be substantial.

If there is any fraud that takes place as a result of this data loss the costs will be very much substantially in excess of Millions and Millions of pounds.

There will now be arguments that we need even more civil servants to cope with such disasters in future (or to suposedly prevent them) so the cost will run on and on for years to come.

I would therefore put my estimate at the cost to the Taxpayer at approximately £5Million (upwards) over the next three months while this rumbles on... Oh joy.

Now you know what Labour and trying to find ways to add further Taxes to the UK population. They need more money to fund Government waste...