Process Failure

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Background

Identification of Issue

Cause

Implications to the Council

Solution

Process Failure - City Education Authority

In some instances departmental and enterprise operations are compromised as a result of high level process flaws. In such instances it is possible for the compromise to go unnoticed for very long periods as, with all the computer systems working as expected, the symptoms of the failures are subtle. To find such flaws it is important to identify multiple and often abstract dimensions that can be measured in isolation and collaboration in order to provide the insight necessary.

Background
A major city council had developed a bespoke application that managed every aspect of their education department's operations. This involved many modules including one that recorded details of allegations made by pupils and staff about the behaviour of other pupils and staff. This module recorded all aspects of allegations about all forms of abuse and misconduct, whether minor or major in nature. The Bichard Inquiry into the events that led to the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman (the Soham Murders) highlighted the importance of such data and how such data should be maintained to minimise a repeat of the circumstance that ultimate led to the death of two innocent school girls. Ian Huntly, the man convicted of the murders, had a string of previous allegations, some of which were made whilst he attended school and others whilst he worked at schools.	Clearly, had these have come to notice of those who employed him at the school where he was to meet his victims, it is likely that he would not have been employed, and thus the murders prevented. In the case of Ian Huntly, few of the allegations made against him were ever proven, yet when viewed as a whole, the number and nature of those allegations made would appear to infer he had criminal tendencies, and if these had been presented as a whole, both the police and potential employers may have taken a different approach in their dealings with him. Given this, one might be surprised to find that, in 2006, 2 years after the Bichard Inquiry, that a system designed to record such data appeared to have records missing, i.e. that somehow, someone had the ability to delete records about allegations. Yet this is the case and highlights a potential process flaw that allows such data loss to go unnoticed and unrecorded.

Identification of Issue
The issue was identified by RAS when conducting an audit of the data. Due to the nature of this subject matter, RAS will not detail how this finding was achieved, other than to say that it was an finding confirmed and acknowledged by the council concerned.

Cause
The cause of this process failure is likely to be nothing more than an oversight on the part of the organisation concerned. The causes for the records being deleted are many and varied, ranging from application error to deliberate human intervention. The motives behind deletion of such data if it was a deliberate act could be completely innocent, or extremely sinister. Either way, it would be best that such data was never deleted and that all records were regularly checked to prove they had not been tampered with or deleted.

Implications to the Council
In the event that such data loss was at any stage to be attributed as a cause of a serious incident, it is clear that the council and senior council staff could be held liable for both enabling such data to be lost and for not knowing that such data was being deleted. If the Council's policy was that such data could be deleted it is likely that this policy would be amended to meet the objectives inferred by the Bichard Inquiry.	If the Council's policy was that such data should never be deleted, the fact that such data has been lost is evidence that the applications used need immediate attention to prevent future deletions. Furthermore, it is the evidence needed to start an internal investigation to identify the culprit and their methods.

Solution

Issue Identification

Issue Resolution

Issue Prevention

This error was easily detected with a RAS Data Audit. The issue was identified within the first 3 days of the audit's activities and the Council was immediately alerted. Furthermore, a RAS Monitor solution will enable the Council to check the status of such data on a daily basis if required. Such checks would not only identify potential data deletion, but would highlight any data changed in any of the records, enabling the Council to validate the integrity of any changes, providing the early warning and information necessary to catch those making inappropriate changes, for what ever motive.

In this instance it was not possible for RAS to restore the missing data, but in reality the resolution required was to prevent future data loss or inappropriate amendment of records. To prevent such inappropriate changes the solution requires changes to both Council policy and the application used.

Even after such changes are introduced, a RAS Monitor solution is required to prove that such changes are effective over the longer term.

To prevent such issues the priority activity is on its early identification, using a RAS Monitor solution. Effective and regular back-up procedures enable data lost (whether accidental or deliberate) to be restored quickly, but key to this is to first identify that data is lost.

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