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The Department for Education's lurch this week on to the information superhighway may yet be hampered by the necessary equipment being in the wrong hands, if the trend seen in a written answer given in the House of Lords on Monday is any indication. In 1993/94, the DFE had two portable computers worth Pounds 4,000 stolen: in 1994/95 the losses had risen to four portables, two desktop machines, 11 processors, three laserjet printers and a payphone - total cost Pounds 20,700.

But the DFE is Fort Knox compared to the Inland Revenue, with over Pounds 100,000 of losses in 1993 and more than Pounds 300,000 last year, including a single blag which yielded 19 printers, nine PCs, a TV and video, four colour monitors, a fax, an answerphone, two dictaphones, a set of manuals and disks, and Pounds 146 in cash, for a total of Pounds 47,032.