Rather shockingly it was reported today that a printing error at HM Revenue & Customs has led to the private financial details of up to 50,000 people who claim tax credits being mistakenly sent out in the post.
The problem is that in the past, public sector procurement of Managed Print Services (MPS) has too often focused on procuring like-for-like without any challenge taking place as to whether what was bought previously was what was needed.
I’d hope the HMRC’s procurement process looked at a secure set up where only authorised documents could have been printed. This would significantly reduce the chance of any sensitive or confidential information being printed out unauthorised.
• The question the public should be asking the HMRC is: who was responsible for each element of the MPS including the strategy, policy creation, decision making and day to day operations?
• The question I’d ask the HMRC is: who was in charge of the governance? Arguably, the most important element in any project involving multiple parties is governance. Printing infrastructure can often grow organically without a single point of control so it is vital to define roles and responsibilities for support departments.
• Finally, the question the industry should be asking the HMRC is: do they realise that not only will effective MPS make it unlikely that this awful error happens again, but that it can: reduce costs; increase the efficiency and sustainability of their printing; mitigate other risks (e.g. business continuity); and result in greater user satisfaction?
The Intellect Managed Print group are in the process of finishing a paper on the Procurement and Governance of MPS. I’ll make sure the HMRC are the first one on my list to receive a copy. In the mean time they can learn more by reading the Intellect paper “Managed Print Services: A Business Tool for the Information Age”.
