Social Security Scotland I.T. questions: FOI release

Information requested

From 18 March 2020 to present:
Part 1: The number of data breaches by Social Security Scotland staff.

Part 2: The number of times the IT system for Social Security Scotland staff crashed.

Part 3: The number of IT complaints from Social Security Scotland staff. Broken down by the type of complaint and the number that type of complaint has been registered (for example: virus concern, computer/laptop crashing, unable to access remote drive and/or otherwise).

Response

Part 1: There have been six data breaches. All six were assessed as low risk in line with the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance. Audited details are published in our Annual Report & Accounts on an annual basis.

Part 2: While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, this is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.

We do not have one ‘IT System’ but have a number of information technology systems that we use, with many of the services and systems operated by third party organisations under contracts and agreements with Social Security Scotland. The third party systems interface with one another.

We record incidents and whilst the term "crash" is not a term that is used there have been no incidents which caused a fatal system error.

Part 3: While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, this is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below. 

As set out above, we record IT incidents and not complaints. In order to advise and assist you the number of incidents recorded from 18 March 2020 to Friday 3 July can be found in the following table:

Category	P1	P2	P3	P4
Total	1	10	28	1,489

A P4 incident is where there is a single user reporting an incident but it does not prevent them from completing their work. A typical example might include a member of staff not being able to access a particular system, such as Skype for Business, or a part of a particular system.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.