Data Protection Commissioner’s Annual Report 2005- A symptom of illness

As an excuse for this extended selection from the newly published Annual Report 2005 from the Data Protection Commissioner, I offer this threadbare explanation; For some years it was one of my duties to collate, collect and write the Annual Report for a State body. Since then, I think I can say I have been more closely attuned to the nuances of Annual Report writing than the average person. Perhaps my reading of this report might throw light on some areas which would otherwise go unnoticed.

So, we’ll kick off this set of extracts with the most important fact for us to know over the next couple of months, buried meaningfully in the Commissioner’s intro. The Office of the Commissioner is scheduled to be decentralised to Portalington this year.

All but one
of the staff have indicated that they will not transfer
with the Office, so the coming year will be one of
transition, as new staff arrive through the Central
Applications Facility (CAF) process and on promotion.

In the midst of this staff turnover, the forthcoming
year will be a challenging one as we seek to maintain
service levels in relation to our statutory functions

“Transition” here may be taken to mean “hamstrung chaos”.