The Ministry of Justice has begun a consultation on giving the Information Commissioner's Office the power to levy penalties of up to £500,000 for the most serious breaches of the Data Protection Act.
The most serious breaches are made by government departments and agencies. So are there provisions for deterrent sanctions against them for serious breaches? Nope.
Consultation papers - Ministry of Justice website
500k fines for data protection breaches? - ComputerWeekly.com
Missing HMRC CDs - what went wrong and lessons for NPfIT and ID Cards - IT Projects Blog