Is Surrey CC sufficiently discerning about its suppliers?
Posted on May 8th by William in Customer service, Faith & practice, IdealGov stuff
My Surrey CC councillor Andrew Povey sent me election material today. But I’m not entirely happy with who Surrey passes my money on to. So I wrote to him using Writetothem:
Dear Andrew Povey
Thank you for your election materials received today and the reminder that our votes count.
My own vote is for now somewhere between in doubt and staying in my pocket. …I wrote to you about Surrey CC supplier CACI and Labour peers. You felt these were unproven allegations, and were not sure CACI was a Surrey CC supplier.
To reiterate and amplify, my concerns are:
- CACI is among the companies named by Labour peers bribed to effect law changes to favour their clients
- CACI managed Abu Graib when torture took place
- but closer to home the manner in which CACI sources, processes and discloses personal data is disagreeable. It seems to me the whole philosophy underlying this work in this area is contrary to human dignity and public-service ethics.
The Tories have rightly identified widespread concern about centralised (as opposed to local) children’s databases, health records, and excessive intrusion into our private lives and the wastage of projects such as ID Cards.
Data about the personal sphere of our lives, it is said, is the oil of the new economy. Some governments, willingly assisted by companies such as CACI, seem to feel free to invade both. It’s reckless, it’s wrong, and they’ll get their comeuppance.
I want to see the money taken by Surrey CC out of my pocket spent ethically and with discernment. CACI is quite clearly a Surrey CC supplier.
Have you asked the difficult questions? Are we satisfied CACI were not complicit in Lords’ bribery and Abu Graib torture? Are we satisfied the data they offer is sufficiently accurate, proportionate and necessary and consensual to conform with UK and EU law? [I'm prompted by this to pay my tenner under the DPA and find out exactly what personal information they do hold.]
CACI has a formdiable PR team and aggressive lawyers. They may say Abu Graib was a different part of the company or “we were merely doing our legally sanctioned patriotic duty”. I can’t take them on myself. So I do count on our elected representative to be properly sceptical and concerned about such matters.
Yours sincerely
William Heath
PS There is plenty of background on this, eg see Scottish NGO reaction
after Scottish census was awarded to CACI:
http://www.sacc.org.uk/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=601&catid=27
CACI does have a data protection officer called Caroline Fantham. I wonder what personal data they have on me? They dont give her phone number or email, so I’ll have to crank the old printer into action and lick a stamp, and in due course probably write a cheque.
