27 Oct 2008

My advice to David on the ContactPoint memo blunder

Sir Bonar writes:

As primus inter pares among the present crop of Permanent Secretaries I find colleagues often seek my advice on matters of especial delicacy. Thus it was that David cornered me last Wednesday morning about this ContactPoint memo business.

In my capacity as Data-Sharing Czar I of course see the value of ContactPoint more clearly than anyone. The Catholic Church teaches us to catch ‘em early. ContactPoint prepares, you might say, the perfect stock for our astral soup of data. We must roll it out at all costs. We cannot entertain discussion on the principle of the matter. To oppose Contactpoint is tantamout to inciting child abuse.

But - somewhat like the last of the Univac mainframes - we Civil Servants must also be hard-wired to avoid party-political comments, especially in writing. DCSF’s strategy, therefore, to write to all councils critising the (admittedly absurd) policy of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition to drop ContactPoint was ill-advised. Most Councils are Tory nowadays. If this hadn’t come out on Ideal Government it would surely have appeared somewhere else in the news media before too long.

Given my long experties in the matter and knowing my passing association with Ideal Government, it was natural that David should ask my advice. And I had to tell him what I have said to many others in his position on many other occasions: “David,” I said gravely: “I’m f*cked, you’re f*cked, the Department is f*cked. We’re all f*cked. This is a monumental balls-up.”

I had to explain to him that creating controversy in this area might jeopardise the entire ring of soup.

I told him he had to get Ministers off the hook immediately, otherwise there would be no end to this row. He had to write a grovelling letter of apology at once. He should send it to Michael Gove, and make sure he used that headed DCSF paper with the smiley rainbow.

“Use phrases like - and I’m not drafting here - assure you that I have immedately put in hand measures to ensure that this does not happen again” and decribe the cock-up as ill judged and unacceptable.”

We’re all mindful that we’ll probably be working with the other lot soon. We’ve only got 500 days or so to make ID Cards, ContactPoint, health records, Intercept Modernsation and all the other ingredients in the ring of soup irreversible. That will mean finding for the Tories a face-saving way to climb down on all their cheap, populist commitments to get rid of these things so we can quietly get on with data-sharing, data fusion and the creation of a secure and just society where people have nothing to hide.

We all agreed that further own goals like that DCSF memo must be avoided at all costs. I can’t blame Ideal Government for bringing it to light. This was a blunder, but it will not be repeated.

 
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