Councils, unions and the nations against ID scheme

Not sure why I haven’t seen this before:

NO2ID:

A growing number of Councils and other major bodies, such as the Scottish Parliament, and the Welsh and London Assemblies have passed strongly worded motions against ID cards. Many of these will refuse to cooperate with the ID scheme; some have even affiliated to NO2ID.

…

Lay things on the line — the millions that each Local Authority is going to have to pay to make its systems compliant with the ID Register and people’s ID number usually wakes people up. This money has to come from somewhere — either cuts in local services, or rises in Council Tax.

It is also worth pointing out that the Home Office’s stated position is currently that every Government Department, Local Authority and public sector body will have to do a “business case” and decide whether or not to ‘buy in’ to the ID scheme, i.e. all the costs will come out of their existing budgets, but there are NO PENALTIES (yet) for those that decide not to join up. …

It is welcome news that a number of organisations within the public sector are refusing to sign up.

It is worth emphasising the point about the budgets.  The (under)estimate that the scheme will cost £5.6 bn is just the estimated cost of setting up and running the scheme at the IPS.  The cost to the rest of the public sector in getting involved is not included.

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