Public services are hugely important in the UK.

From NHS trusts to local councils, devolved governments and UK-wide governmental departments to fire and police services, the public sector employed 5.36 million people in March 2018.

With that large number of employees and an even larger number of people served by them, public services need to ensure their data protection protocols are up to date and effective.

One key area is ensuring that old documentation which ranges from confidential and sensitive to secret and top secret is disposed of correctly.

Here are 3 key reasons every public service should ensure documents and electronic media are shredded securely:

  1. You need to show people you take their data security seriously

Maintaining confidence in any public service is very important.

The public needs to have confidence the organisation will deliver its services, deal with them fairly, and ensure their data is held and disposed of securely.

The same applies to members of staff.

Once there is a blow of that kind against a service, it can take years for it to recover its reputation.

  1. You need to show the taxpayer that you provide value for money

At a time when many public services are struggling to make ends meet, ensuring what they do is cost effective is vital.

Funds need to be directed to frontline services and keeping the cost of support services down is an important way of ensuring that happens.

Having staff spending long hours shredding confidential documents, old computer hard drives, and old media such as flash drives, takes them away from providing those services to the public.

  1. You need to fulfill your legal obligations

The General Data Protection regulation (GDPR) which came into force in May allows for stiff penalties for organisations which do not handle data securely. Fines of up to two million Euros or up to 4% of an organisations turnover can be imposed in the most serious cases.

Every public service must fulfill its legal obligations to deal with data securely.

Alongside a potential fine, there is also the potential for a costly legal action from members of the public or staff whose data security is breached, something which could seriously damage the reputation of any organisation.

Why should your public service choose to work with On Time Shred?

  • We meet the shredding standards set by the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI)
  • We can destroy in excess of 10 tonnes of confidential waste every hour
  • We can reduce items to a dust-sized particle
  • Our employees are vetted
  • Our vehicles have GPS tracking and our premises have 24-hour CCTV coverage. Access to them is tested regularly
  • We give you a certificate of destruction so that you can prove your item was destroyed correctly, waste transfer notes and numbers, and an audit trail
  • None of our waste goes to landfill

 

Do you need help or advice? Call our On Time Shred experts on 0330 333 1234.