To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many civil servants in his Department have been (a) investigated, (b) suspended and (c) dismissed for (i) losing and (ii) deliberately disclosing (A) data stored on departmental equipment and (B) confidential information in each year since its inception. (242921)

Since the Department was created in July 2007, and up to the end of November 2008, no cases of data loss or disclosure have been investigated.

The Department takes any breach of security very seriously and, in some cases, may take disciplinary action against those who commit such breaches. Policies and guidance on IT security are available to all staff on the departmental intranet. Logging into the Department's IT system requires that staff must agree to abide by these policies.