The curious case of Ms M

Three government agencies have been criticised by the parliamentary ombudsman for failing to correct a data sharing blunder which led to a woman's personal and financial information being disclosed to a former partner. The ombudsman upheld the complaint against HM Revenue & Customs, the Child Support Agency and the Department for Work and Pensions over the handling of the blunder which also saw child support payments to the woman reduced without her knowledge. A complaint was raised by the woman, known only as Ms M, in 2006 after one of the agencies incorrectly updated her records to show she was living at her former partner's address despite her never having lived there. Although she was reassured this had been corrected she was subsequently passed from one agency to the other, each denying responsibility. "Ms M understandably found this experience extremely distressing. She was compelled to spend a good deal of time and money ensuring her records were correct, and she still lives with the fear of a recurrence," Abraham said. "Ms M told us that her ultimate objective in pursuing her complaint was to have peace of mind that the source of the problem has been found and resolved so that she can be assured the same problem will not happen again. Although the lack of an audit trail means it will never be possible to understand fully what happened, I hope that my report will go some way towards giving Ms M the peace of mind she seeks." In the report, A Breach of Absence, Abraham highlighted her concerns on a number of issues including the network of computer systems used by the agencies that could make changes to Ms M's personal data without her knowledge or consent but could not be used to track the source of errors; a tendency by the agencies to blame "the system" rather than deal with the problem; a lack of reassurance over Ms M's personal information; and that while the agencies shared computer systems, the agencies themselves failed to communicate. "There is an important warning here for all public bodies," Abraham said. "The lessons from Ms M's experience and my investigation are not only about information sharing. Public bodies need to learn to get their administration right, to be customer-focused, be open and accountable and to work together to put things right when mistakes occur." Abraham said if lessons were not learnt, government agencies risked a public lack of trust. The Ombudsman recommended an apology, £2,000 compensation and an assurance that her details have been checked on every database owned by the three agencies involved. She has also recommended that the three agencies, in discussion with the Cabinet Office, agree a customer-focused protocol to deal with complaints of this kind.