Less than a week after the less than pleasing OFSTED report for Hertfordshire’s Children’s Services the Conservative controlled County Council has been fined £100k for breaches to the data protection act.

The council sent faxes containing sensitive information concerning child sex abuse and child care proceedings cases to the wrong fax number. The council has apologised.

Chris White, Leader of Hertfordshire’s Liberal Democrat Opposition group said: ‘This complacent council has done it again. It can’t fix the roads. It can’t get its accounts straight. And it can’t prevent itself from sending confidential papers to the wrong address.

‘It’s not as though this were one off incompetence: it happened twice and the council failed to take proper action over the first occasion.

‘Residents who bump along over poorly maintained roads while listening to the county council boasting about how wonderful it is in one of the two dozen press releases it issues each day will be asking how the £100,000 fine will be paid for.

‘It is simple: the official in charge of this department should go along with the Tory councillor who must have known about this and yet did nothing about it.’