IOM DHSC & MANX CARE

[asitis]

Shredded, do not have possession of, archived, insufficient storage space ... a full and proper system forensic audit would be interesting, by a company with military intelligence level expertise ! Not some Microsoft schoolboy on the island !.

[Andy Onchan]

12 minutes ago, asitis said:

Shredded, do not have possession of, archived, insufficient storage space ... a full and proper system forensic audit would be interesting, by a company with military intelligence level expertise ! Not some Microsoft schoolboy on the island !.

He's bonkers. He should be committed.

[Wavey Davey]

I’ve always had a lot of time for Teresa Cope but it seems that she’s now gone native as well by claiming that the ICO and GDPR rules (rules which everyone else holding personal data has to abide by) are hampering them from providing services. A typical civil servant adviser response. 

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/manx-care-apologises-to-information-commissioner/

Maybe, just maybe, the IOM rules are there to make sure you abide by globally recognized standards of data integrity & safeguarding? Just like every other business providing services in the IOM. 

[Roger Mexico]

2 hours ago, quilp said:

Pdf warning. The letter of rebuttal...

It doesn't make much sense does it (and it's basically a repeat of his appearance with Moulton).  He's reacting about the non-disclosure of his emails to Clare Barber and Dr Patricia Crellin (more pointless redaction there).  But unless those emails were sent from a personal account of Ashford (which is both unlikely - especially for Dr Crellin - and a whole other layer of impropriety) then it would have been from a government account. 

In that case, he shouldn't really have been involved in the process of disclosure anyway.  That should have been done as an admin process by staff trained for that.  Neither he nor Magson should have been involved in deciding what was relevant or not.  That's for the Court to decide.   This clear in the original decision:

28. But for the persistence of Dr Ranson in refusing to accept the integrity of the Respondent’s disclosure in October 2021, under what is called standard disclosure, there might have been a serious miscarriage of justice because so many documents were not produced until she took advantage of the process known as Data Subject Access Request (DSAR). Yet even that process failed to reveal all documents that should have been before this Tribunal.

The fact Ashford turned down an offer from an assistant to help (when it should al have been left to her) suggests he either had no idea of his job or was party to the attempt to suppress evidence.  Such evidence requests are not an unknown event, there will have been previous ones during Ashford's time as Minister, not just for employment tribunals, but for other court cases as well.  So either the DHSC was operating the wrong and potentially illegal procedures for those too, or special efforts were made by them in this case.

As the Decision noted (para 600 ff): "Minister Ashford’s witness statement made not a single favourable mention of Dr Ranson".  Both the emails where he praised her did appeared as evidence though (Crellin para 600; Barber para 595), presumably via the DSAR.  As "Mr Segal pointed out that, in effect, this evidence disowned para 14 of his written statement" [602].  Despite claiming that he had disclosed these, he gave evidence as if he thought the Tribunal hadn't seen them. 

What is more as Gef reported from this week's hearing: "In the case of Mr Ashford, he had originally told GTS that the only correspondence he had regarding Dr Ranson were with Ms Magson, which meant they were already available to the tribunal".  Presumably someone from GTS has said this in an affidavit.  This contradicts what he is now claiming.

His own letter above indicates he became aware of this discrepancy when he gave evidence and he claims he asked the AGC's representative to pass this information on.  But why not inform the Tribunal directly - he doesn't seem shy about sending an email.  And why wait till now to make his claim public?

[asitis]

Maybe he's trying a bit of deflection, as he can see the large brown pile sliding inexorably towards the rotating thing !

[The Voice of Reason]

5 hours ago, Augustus said:

Loving the "Mr" David Ashford, as opposed to David Ashford.

Yes that puts a whole new slant on things

[asitis]

1 minute ago, Roxanne said:

Letters, emails, they do seem to be his Achilles heel. 

yup, the whole problem with the written word is its lack of deniability !

At least if you tell someone to their face they are a moron you could deny it later.

 

[Gladys]

It just seems to me that no one took the matter seriously, the IT case was probably seen as a bit of a try-on, bound to fail, etc.

So that was why a less than assiduous approach was taken to disclosure.  For example, DA's belief that because all his relevant correspondence would be in Magson's disclosure he wouldn't disclose himself (he has said that hasn't he?).  Also turning down the offer to search his emails from another member of staff.  If you are receiving the volume of emails he says, would you really have the time to do the search? 

What surely should happen is the system is searched by GTS staff who provide all the raw material to the AG who then review and decide what is relevant and what is not.  Gargantuan task, but thorough and not susceptible to selectivity. 

[Manx Resident]

Mr Ashford makes reference to his departmental (DHSC) email account and a search made by GTS. He also presumably has a Tynwald.org email account managed by the Clerk of Tynwald’s Office?. Politicians who are not department members would I believe have such an email account for use in their day to day business, constituency work etc. It would really become interesting if Mr Ashford had sent emails from such an account, which would be separate to his DHSC emails, and which would not be picked up by a search focused solely on his DHSC account!.

[Manx Resident]

8 hours ago, Manx Resident said:

……… a Tynwald.org email account managed by the Clerk of Tynwald’s Office?. Politicians who are not department members would I believe have such an email account for use in their day to day business, constituency work etc. It would really become interesting if Mr Ashford had sent emails from such an account…..……….

If my speculation about politicians also having a Tynwald email account is incorrect and they only have one single @gov.im account for all emails that would raise a different concern. Politicians in departments would presumably be processing departmental business, constituency issues and private confidential matters all from the same email account which would seem to be accessible by GTS and colleagues.

[Roger Mexico]

13 minutes ago, Manx Resident said:

If my speculation about politicians also having a Tynwald email account is incorrect and they only have one single @gov.im account for all emails that would raise a different concern. Politicians in departments would presumably be processing departmental business, constituency issues and private confidential matters all from the same email account which would seem to be accessible by GTS and colleagues.

This has worried me for some time.  I can't find any evidence of any email address supplied to politicians other than the gov.im one.  Presumably there are various codes about access and so on, but we know how much notice and respect are given to those by senior civil servants from the Ranson case and the endless attempts by the Information Commissioner to get Departments to even set such things up - never mind follow them.  And GTS aren't famous for their competence at the best of times - think of the incident of Ranson's phone.

[Manx Resident]

I am pretty certain that during the Bell Administration there was a separate Tynwald email system. The more you ponder the use of a single gov.im email account by our politicians for all their government, departmental, constituency and personal correspondence the more concerning it becomes, particularly in the light of the recent data protection breaches by Manx Care. Perhaps another area for review when they shake up the culture of the Civil Service.

[Zarley]

17 hours ago, WTF said:

a vast proportion of the 28000 emails will some useless wank stains in government sending them to 5000 other people they were never meant for.

Ashford probably keeps - and eventually archives - all the viagra, penis enlargement, and other spam emails he gets. That would account for a large part of the 28,000 as well.

He'd assume they were from his adoring, trying-to-be-helpful constituents and therefore worth keeping to remind himself of how much he's loved.

 

[cissolt]

1 hour ago, Roger Mexico said:

This has worried me for some time.  I can't find any evidence of any email address supplied to politicians other than the gov.im one.  Presumably there are various codes about access and so on, but we know how much notice and respect are given to those by senior civil servants from the Ranson case and the endless attempts by the Information Commissioner to get Departments to even set such things up - never mind follow them.  And GTS aren't famous for their competence at the best of times - think of the incident of Ranson's phone.

I don't believe the phone incident was anything to do with GTS, apart from carrying out a request to wipe it.  I'm sure an foi would confirm that suspicion.

[asitis]

The comforting thing for me, in respect of any potential serious wrongdoing, is Ashford appears stupid enough to talk himself into it, rather than talk himself out of it. Perhaps someone should tell him to sit on his hands and shut up ! He has the intellect of a marble.