The government has been advised to postpone the introduction of ID Cards until it can be sure the scheme will work.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee inquiry into the thinking behind ID Cards found the government had decided what it wanted to do before it had determined if it would even work. “In view of the potential adverse impact on large numbers of people, it is better that the scheme is late and workable than on time but flawed,” the committee report said.

It recommended that the Home Office “extend the pro- curement phase to ensure that enough time is taken to gather the necessary scientific evidence”.

To date, the committee found, the Home Office had been “unscientific” in its practice of selectively using evidence collected by previous trials. Jerry Fishenden, national technology officer at Microsoft, told the com- mittee: “After all these consultations we still do not seem to have had an impact on [Home Office] under- standing about what makes a good identity system.”

Source: Science and Technology Committee

The Home Office press office didn’t answer a massive 5008 phone calls last year, despite record expenditure on staff.

The Home Office press officenow costs £3.1m a year, up 33% in four years from less than £2.1m in 2001-2. But despite expansion to “meet the needs of the 24-hour media”, the newsdesk failed to pick up 8.2% of its 61,070 phone calls.

Source: theyworkforyou.com