It is too easy to think of `infrastructure’, in IT terms, as just meaning the datacentres, networks and management software that go to make up the `plumbing’ of the system. But in practice, as yesterday’s inglorious debacle at HM Revenue and Customs so ably demonstrates, one of the most important parts of the infrastructure is the people that actually make it work.

There have already been a number of comments about the fact that the data was transported on two disks that were only password protected and not encrypted. Chancellor Darling did suggest that there was some other, unspecified, protective device on the disks which would save the identity of every UK child benefit claimant, and it is to be fondly hoped that he is right.

As a technology scribe I am surely not alone in also receiving a number of press release comments from those in and around the industry that want to have a say about it. What is interesting is that most have centred on technology issues. As the submitted commentary from Dave Martin, Security Consultant at LogicaCMG suggests, it is indeed “frustrating that many of the systems and processes that would have ensured this did not happen already exist.”

Too right it is. Let’s not even ponder why the data was not emailed. Even though it be Gigabytes in size it would surely be still quicker – and greener - to deliver the data that way than by overnight courier. If you have ever seen the treatment the cages carrying the parcels and envelopes get at a courier’s regional sorting station it would be easy to surmise that the disks have fallen out of the cage and been inadvertently kicked into a convenient rat hole.

But the fundamental learning to come out of this is that, while we tend to put our faith in technology and argue about which technology could have handled things better when something goes wrong, the real problem is at a much higher level in `the process’ – though technologiest might argue that it is a `lower level’. . Ultimately, this is a people problem, and I suspect it is a problem caused by the demeaning of those that have to do often mundane, repetitive tasks – the `pen pushers’, `bean counters’ and `jobsworths’ that actually make mundane, repetitive but important processes.

Yes, we all loath them and their interfering, pernickety ways. I suspect many of them start to loath themselves as well – I think I probably would in their shoes. Yet, when stupendous cock-ups like this occur we suddenly realise how vital their collective anal retention capabilities can be in making processes work effectively.

So let’s hear a shout in praise of those most vital parts of every process – the jobsworths that make it work.