SNP response on CACI and the Scottish census

First posted by Ken Waldron on the Media lens Message Board 24 August 2008

More on CACI: Sunday Herald

Reply from SNP regarding my e-mail on CACI contract for Scottish Census:

Dear Mr Waldron

Many thanks for your e-mail.

A spokeswoman for the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) said:

"Our contract is with CACI (UK), a separate legal entity from its US parent company. CACI (UK) specialises in IT systems and is not involved in defence work.

"Allegations of improper conduct made against the parent company have been vehemently denied, but in any event there is no link between these allegations and the work of CACI (UK).

"CACI (UK)'s proposals were the best and most competitively priced of the bids we received, delivering best value for taxpayers' money. It also has experience of supporting two censuses in the Republic of Ireland - a country with a comparable population size to Scotland.

"CACI (UK) have been appointed to print census questionnaires and other materials, provide questionnaires for people to complete on the internet, capture data from the questionnaires and process results.

"Our priority is to protect the confidentiality of information that identifies individuals and households for 100 years after each census and this contract will adhere to these strict standards.

"GROS staff will work closely with CACI (UK). We will commission independent audits of security arrangements and procedures to confirm that all security measures are being adhered to and continue to provide effective protection for personal information.

"GROS followed EU procurement legislation and published notice in the Official Journal of the EU in November 2007."

A Scottish Government spokesman said:

"The Scottish Government would never be party to a contract with any company convicted of human rights abuses. We, and government agencies such as GROS, are fundamentally committed to ethical conduct.

"This contract was negotiated and agreed by GROS, who could not take unproven allegations into account during the procurement process. Obviously, confidentiality and data security is of paramount concern for an organisation such as GROS and this contract will meet the extremely strict standards set, and is covered by UK data protection legislation."

FOR INFORMATION

• EU competitive tendering law means that public bodies must tender all service contracts worth more than £147,000. It does not allow bidders to be excluded even if they are foreign companies, or if they have some involvement with the defence industry. CACI (UK) is neither of these.
• Anyone working with census data must comply with UK data protection and census confidentiality legislation and is required to sign a legally binding undertaking confirming they will fulfil their obligations.
• As a UK company CACI (UK) is not affected by the Patriot Act. CACI (UK). The terms of our contract with CACI (UK) guarantee that its US parent company and staff will not have access to personal census data, so it can not pass census details to the US authorities. All data whether held on paper or electronically, will remain in Scotland at all times.