£1.2 million for London councils to implement GDPR

A new policy paper has revealed that preparations for the incoming EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is costing London councils over £1.2 million to implement.

Published by the Parliament Street think tank, the report shows that local authorities were spending between £25,000 and £300,000 to ensure all data standards were compliant by the May deadline, including investment in specialist compliance staffing, external consultancy and significant spending on GDPR management software.

The Tower Hamlets borough has set aside a budget of £300,000 solely for GDPR compliance. The authority added that the cost of a dedicated project worker for 12 months on a salary of £49,514 per annum has also been committed.

Conversely, Hounslow has already spent £1,000 on staff training and materials, with an additional £4,000 allocated to the project for the rest of the year. It has one of the lowest level of GDPR-related spend.

Nick Felton, director of MHR Analytics, said of the report: “The GDPR is designed to add strengthen and unify existing law, and under this legislation London Borough Councils must understand what personal data they process, why they process it, how and who processes it and, importantly, the legal basis used to qualify the processing.”