Bureaucratic Officialdom - Data Protection, HASAW

The last agency [1] I worked for refused to supply me with a payslip. They claimed that they were complying with the data protection act in doing so. Apparently I might live at a shared address and someone else might interfere with my mail hence their reluctance to send me information on my pay and deductions. As I know a little about compliance with the Data Protection act I was almost tempted to make a discussion out of this but I was keenly aware that I was talking to the oily rag and not the engineer. Also, I have had some people attempt to give me all kinds of outrageous bollocks under the guise of the data protection act before, including government agencies[2] who really should know better.


I got appointed a Data Protection Liaison Officer once, so I had to study the subject in some depth. The Data Protection Act dosn't mean what most people seem to assume it means. It compels organisations which keep 'personal' data to declare themselves to the registrar. It compels these organisations to reveal details of what information they keep on individuals to those individuals, and that's about it. Of course, by the nature of our bureaucratic officialdom which worms its way into everything we do these simple strictures have been complicated and expanded and elaborated beyond all sense.

The same thing has happened with the Health and Safety at Work act so that risk assessments have to be done for the simplest of day to day activities. These risk assessments then result in roles and responsibilities being defined for these activities, and associated training and certification and statements of compliance so that even sharpening a pencil becomes an activity subject to audit and compliance.

To the normal individual, who does not get involved in the risk assessments, the documentation of procedures, roles and responsibilities, who is not subject to audit and compliance, these strictures form an impenetrable thicket of regulation and red tape. The temptation is to avoid entanglement by skirting around them altogether. Do you want to install an extra electrical socket in your garage? Sure you can do it yourself, it's fairly straightforward. If you lack the knowledge, skills or expertise you can employ a friendly handyman to do the job for you. If you want to get the job done 'properly' you enlist the services of a local electrician who will charge you £250 for the mandatory post-installation survey, test and certification. And why not, because you can add the certificate to your Householder's Information Pack [3] which you will have to provide to the next occupier of the premises anyway. If I am any judge, you'll avoid the expense by doing it on the cheap and pretending it never happened.


[1] Pertemps, Northampton.
[2] Criminal Record Bureau, who wouldn't even tell me if they'd received some paperwork from me because of "Data Protection".
[3] As the passage of time washes away all that we were and all that we remember so will the memory of the "Home Information Pack" be lost. This was a scheme requiring householders to supply an information pack to potential buyers of the property. To be compliant with the standard for detail and presentation this provision would have placed a cost upon the householder. Already beleaguered by legal costs, advertising expenses, agency fees amongst others, this proposal did not sit well with the householder. Happily, for some (for it is an ill wind that blows no good) this proposal went the way of the government that had proposed it and was dropped like a hot potato by the succeeding administration.