Tim Worstall

HIPS

Amazing:

Homeowners who dispute key details entered by
officials in their Home Information Pack (Hips) face a near-impossible
task to set the record straight, it can be revealed.

The
Department for Communities and Local Government, which is in charge of
Hips, has been forced to admit that the national database responsible
for Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), as part of the scheme,
cannot be altered once a property’s information – no matter how
accurate – has been entered.

You can see their problem, of course. It simply doesn’t conform to their world view, would cause heads to explode. "Man With Clipboard Wrong?" No, clearly, as this could never happen there doesn’t need to be any system to remedy the effects of something that could never possibly happen.

In

5 responses

  1. Barry Caleini Avatar
    Barry Caleini

    You are correct in that it cannot be changed.
    BUT. If there were significant evidence to suggest that there is a problem with the data entry or collection then a new certificate can be issued replacing the previous one, cant really see an issue here………….
    And if the fault lies with the man with a clipboard as you so eloquently put it, then the cost of reissue would be down to the Assessor.
    Not really seeing “a near impossible task”
    Mountains from molehills springs to mind

    Reply
  2. knirirr Avatar
    knirirr

    the … database … cannot be altered once [data] has been entered
    That sounds very very odd indeed, for even if they have designed a simple front-end to their database that doesn’t include such a facility it should still be possible via some sort of “update $table set $field=$new_value where $subject_id=$value” statement.
    Perhaps they mean “cannot” in the way many bureaucrats do, i.e. it is technically possible, but more than their job’s worth.

    Reply
  3. AntiCitizenOne Avatar
    AntiCitizenOne

    Yep the SQL92 standard that includes the update statement is now 15 years old.
    You can see that our government have problems keeping up with these newfangled inventions.

    Reply
  4. Kay Tie Avatar
    Kay Tie

    “Perhaps they mean “cannot” in the way many bureaucrats do, i.e. it is technically possible, but more than their job’s worth.”
    Is this database immune from the data protection acts then? A central tenet of data protection is that wrong data can be corrected. A little letter to the Information Commissioner’s Office ought to sort this out.

    Reply
  5. Agammamon Avatar
    Agammamon

    They may also mean that its uncorrectable because their is no process in place to collect and vet the data that needs to be changed, not that the database itself can’t be modified.
    In other words there is probably no one with written authority to ok changes to the DB.

    Reply

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