EXCLUSIVE: Brent Council suspends Veolia's management of confidential waste after data breach

Wembley Matters contacted Brent Council after a Coulsdon resident emailed:

 I'm a big fan of your blog Wembley Matters. I thought you might be interested in the below......

A Veolia lorry has driven through Brighton Road in Coulsdon (CR5 2BE), leaving confidential letters sown all over the street that look to be from Brent Council........

All sorts involved, letters containing full names addresses etc and some very confidential matters.

Many of these letters have ended up in people's gardens. Veolia and the council have been round picking them up since monday

Surely this is a serious breach of the DPO laws?? 

I didn't manage to get a picture unfortunately, but if you speak to some residents you might hear some interesting tales... you may also wish to ask the council about it?

Of course I did. 

I have established that Veolia transports Brent Council confidential waste to Croydon for shredding in purpose designed confidential information bags. This is also done by other nearby councils contracted to Veolia.

I understand that about 700 items were involved and Brent Council has been collecting them and informing those affected. Some of the items in the gutter were in a poor state and unreadable.

Brent Council told Wembley Matters that this collection and contacting of residents took time but only a small proportion of the 700 items were confidential.

 

A Brent Council spokesperson said:  

 

We sincerely apologise to the Brent residents affected by the data breach by our waste contractor Veolia. 

 

As soon as we were made aware of the error we took immediate steps, together with our contractor, to recover the information. Following several sweeps of the area where the loss took place, we have done everything possible to safely recover the information. We are notifying relevant parties, where appropriate, and the incident has been reported to the Information Commissioner.

 

We are working closely with Veolia and have suspended their management of the council’s confidential waste for the time being. A full investigation is now taking place into how this incident happened so lessons can be learned and more robust measures put in place to ensure this can never happen again.

 

A Veolia spokesperson said:

We would like to apologise to all residents who have been affected by this unacceptable incident and have taken immediate action to recover and secure any confidential waste.
 

We take this matter extremely seriously and are conducting an urgent investigation into the circumstances of this incident and will continue to work closely with Brent Council in order to limit any impact.

 

William Relton, Coordinator of Brent Green Party commented:

I understand that Veolia's contract with Brent is coming to an end soon. I urge Brent Council not to renew the contract and take all waste disposal and recycling, particularly items of a confidential matter, back in-house. Why any organisation would pay another commercial organisation to shred its confidential materials is quite beyond me.

Wembley Matters will report the result of any investigation by the Information Commissioner and any measures or fines imposed as a result of this breach.

REVEALED: All Souls/Gillick Kensal Rise Library option agreement

Guest blog by Meg Howarth
 
All Souls College (ASC) has released the Option Agreement (OA) to buy Kensal Rise Library which it signed with Andrew Gillick on 26 November 2012. It was ordered to do so by the Information Commissioner following a successful appeal against its refusal to disclose the document under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request - details of that decision have been published on the ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) website.

 Failure to comply with the commissioner's decision could have resulted in ASC being reported to the High Court. Though the college was permitted to redact the names, dates and sale-price from disclosure, ironically it's only the price Andrew Gillick paid for Kensal Rise Library that's still unknown. As of today, the Land Registry records haven't been updated since the sale to Mr Gillick was completed on/after 31 January this year but currently reveal:

'Option Agreement dated 26 November 2012 made between 

(1) Andrew Gillick and (2) The Warden and College of the Souls of All 

Faithful People Deceased in the University of Oxford expiring on 31 

January 2013' 

and that the value of the property 

 'at 5 July 2012 was stated to be under £100,000'. 

Interestingly, the OA shows that Mr Gillick paid a deposit of £105,000 which was to be deducted from the sale-price of the building.

Dated                2012

THE WARDEN AND COLLEGE OF THE SOULS OF ALL FAITHFUL PEOPLE DECEASED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD (1)

--------------------(2)

__________________________________

                OPTION AGREEMENT

         to purchase Kensal Rise Library

___________________________________

DfE's most expensive Free Schools

From Education Investor LINK

 DfE figures reveal England's most expensive free schools

The Department of Education (DfE) has given new free schools almost £60 million in extra funding to support them to the end of their first year, figures published over the weekend revealed.

 

This money is in addition to both per pupil revenue funding, and to the capital used to acquire sites for new schools.

 

The figures, published following a ruling by the Information Commissioner, cover 77 open schools, as well as 10 which were withdrawn from the programme. 

 

They show that the government spent £20 million on schools before they opened. This includes £441,000 in funding given to schools that never opened at all.

 

In addition, the government provided £40 million in "post-opening funding". The DfE said the money was required to "cover essential initial costs, such as buying books and equipment; and to meet the costs arising as the school builds up its cohorts over time".

 

The figures also showed a wide variation in the distribution of such funding. 

 

On average, each school received around £770,000. But a handful received only £25,000, while one – Reach Academy Feltham – received more than £2 million.

 

A few weeks ago the government also updated the document revealing capital spending on free schools.

 

It showed that the first 23 such schools to open had required £85.8 million to acquire sites, an average of £3.8 million per school.

 

The most expensive had been King Science Academy, which had required £10.5 million in capital funding, as well as £1.2 million in extra revenue funding. 

 

Bristol Free School, meanwhile, had also topped the £10 million mark, requiring £9.6 million in capital and £743,000 in pre- and post-opening revenue funding.