There is irony in the timing of a £500,000 fine levied on Facebook today by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for two breaches of the Data Protection Act in the scandal involving Cambridge Analytica. The breaches occurred before the latest European General Data Protection (GDPR) came into effect in May, therefore the £500,000 cap is one set by the UK’s Data Protection Act 1998.
In the current debate in the UK around how to achieve better corporate governance at a challenging time and amid changing business and workplace models in the face of technological transformation, there is a concept that is returning to the forefront - ‘social value.’ This week the UK government returned to the Social Value Act of 2013, extending its requirements in central government to ensure all major procurements explicitly evaluate social value where appropriate, rather than just ‘consider’ it. It comes after the Carillion collapse, which offers examples of the failure of governance on every level.
A warning bell rang out last week with media headlines around audit, consultancy, legal services and governance. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the country’s securities regulator, banned global accountancy firm PwC from auditing listed companies in the country for two years after failing to spot a $1.7bn fraud at Satyam Computer Services. “The order comes nine years after the scam at Satyam Computer Services came to light and after two failed attempts by PwC to settle the case through the consent mechanism” wrote Live Mint.
