According to BBC News Gloucestershire County Council has sent out letters to the parents of a number of children who had died asking them to choose a school as they approach school starting age!

This has resulted in a good deal of pain and grief for the parents and a significant embarrassment to the council and is one more strand in the perception that government agencies (both central and local) have a very bad record in in Information Management. The problem seems to have arisen because of poorly defined inter-agency information requests (i.e. the council seems to have asked the local NHS Trust for details of children born between certain dates and not specified that they should be still alive) and then poor checking of results (at least that’s what the council is blaming it on).

We all know that one can’t add quality so this PR disaster shows the importance of getting the spec right. It also raises questions: “How do the Council find out about children who have moved into the the area after being born within the purview of another NHS Trust?”