Timing.

Is it just Mr Smith or does the irony of this hit home hard.

The Scottish Government published on their website on 25th June 2008, an intriguing publication called "Data Handling in Government" which looked at how Scottish Government bodies and agencies handled sensitive public information.

One of the conclusions reached was that "This review has found that data security is being taken seriously across the Scottish Government and its agencies but that there is room for improvement. There is substantial good practice in Scotland but there have also been a few breaches of security, which are damaging to public confidence."

Ironically, one of the agencies which contributed to the report was none other than the Scottish Ambulance Service which has recently had to apologise for losing the details of 900,000 "999" calls. You couldn't make it up really.