Ministers have revealed the number of laptops lost or stolen from their departments, with the Department for Work and Pensions mislaying 41 laptops last year.
Work and pensions minister Jim Knight said that out of around 9,700 laptops used by his department and its agencies, 41 were lost or stolen in 2008.
The figure shows a rise on the previous year, when 15 went missing, but is markedly lower than the figure of 75 for 2004. Knight said the DWP has "introduced a number of security improvements, including a requirement that all laptops are encrypted".
The department is one of the largest in government, so could be expected to lose more equipment than others.
Knight was responding a written question from Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, who has asked parliamentary written questions of several departments about the loss of laptops over the past five years.
Figures for the Department of Health and its agencies show that the number of laptops lost or stolen reached a peak of 36 in 2008-09, up from 14 the previous year, with all other years showing fewer losses. Minister Phil Hope said all the devices were encrypted, minimising the risk of exposing sensitive or personal data.
Although the Ministry of Justice lost only five laptops in 2008-09, its agencies, including the courts, prison and probation services, lost 19 in that period. Four of these were eventually recovered, while another went missing in delivery and was never used.
Transport minister Chris Mole did not give a detailed breakdown, but said that at the central department 14 laptops have been lost or stolen since January 2004. For its agencies, however, the figure reached 91.
Communities and Local Government hung on to all but one of its laptops in 2008-09, although nine were reported stolen or lost in the previous year. Data on the missing laptops was not encrypted, but was not confidential, minister Shahid Malik said.
During 2004-08, 13 laptops had been lost or stolen from the Cabinet Office, none containing classified information.
Other departments responding to Blunt's questions were the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which has mislaid two since 2004; the Northern Ireland Office with five missing since 2004; and the Department for Children, Schools and Families which had six lost or stolen in 2008-09, down from a peak of 37 in 2004-05.
The departments which appear to have taken most care of their laptops, although they are also among the smallest, are the Equalities Office, with only one laptop stolen this year, and the Olympics programme. Olympics minister Tessa Jowell said no laptops were lost or stolen from her section of government.
Talkback
It would make sense for these reports to indicate how many laptops are being lost without encryption on them. We have seen significant progress across UK government since the publication of the Data Handling Review - it would help the citizen regain confidence in the actions undertaken if they knew that despite inevitable equipment losses - the data contained on them was now encrypted.
The same goes for removable storage devices such as USB connected devices, there has been an increased investment in Device Control solutions that now control and manage their use and force encryption where security policy dictates.