HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
CHILDREN’S SERVICES AND CORPORATE PARENTING CABINET
PANEL
WEDNESDAY 16 JULY 2008 AT 10.00AM
ContactPoint
Report of the Director of Children, Schools and Families
[Author: Margaret Marshall, ContactPoint Implementation Manager
Tel: 01992 588815]
Executive Member: Jane Pitman (Children’s Services)
1. Purpose of report
Following the recent update on integrated practice, this report aims to update the Children’s Services and Corporate Parenting Cabinet Panel on the roll-out and requirements for ContactPoint in Hertfordshire.
2. Summary
2.1 What is ContactPoint?
ContactPoint is a key part of the Government’s Every Child Matters programme to transform Children’s services, by supporting more effective prevention and early intervention, to ensure that children get the additional services they need as early as possible. In Hertfordshire, ContactPoint is being implemented as part of Integrated Practice.
Lord Laming’s 2003 report into the death of Victoria Climbié recommended that the Government investigate the feasibility of a database covering all children, providing basic identifying details and contact details for practitioners and services involved with the child. ContactPoint will enable practitioners across education, health, social care, youth justice and the voluntary sector to:
· Take account of other practitioners’ involvement with a child or young person when they undertake assessments of their circumstances and needs;
· Undertake joint multi-agency service planning and delivery; and,
· Provide earlier and more effective intervention and support to children and young people and their families.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has recommended groups of people who they feel will benefit from being able to access ContactPoint.
ContactPoint will be the simple way for any authorised person who is working with a child to find out who else is providing support to that child – making it easier to provide a better service, and avoiding duplication and delay.
Put simply, ContactPoint is a directory of all children in England up to the age of 18 and will hold basic identifying (or ‘demographic’) information.
2.2 How is it being implemented nationally?
Top tier local authorities in England have overall responsibility for managing implementation and ongoing access to the system and supply of data.
Users will include those working in education, health, social care, youth justice and some voluntary organisations. Before they are granted access, all users will have completed mandatory ContactPoint training and other relevant training (e.g. information sharing). They must have security clearance (including enhanced Criminal Records Bureau disclosure) and will need a username, a PIN, a personal security token and a password. The Government’s security review of ContactPoint, undertaken by Deloitte in the wake of the HRMC child benefit data disks being mislaid, concluded that the importance of information security “appears to have been ingrained within the key project areas”.
2.3 Local Implementation
Hertfordshire has made good progress to date in the implementation of ContactPoint and is due to go live during March 2009 according to the current timetable. The Local Implementation Team in Hertfordshire is working with partner organisations of HCTP as an integral part of integrated practice to put arrangements in place. However the County Council has overall responsibility for implementation and ongoing management of the system and its use at a local level.
ContactPoint will be made available to local authorities and national partners in England from late 2008, to early 2009.
2.4 What are the benefits of ContactPoint?
Several ‘Trailblazer’ local authorities piloted directories or indexes as they were sometimes known. These pilots demonstrated the following benefits of this type of directory:
· less time trying to find other practitioners;
· quicker assessment of whether a child is receiving universal services (education, primary health care);
· enables more effective multi-agency working which leads to better service experience for children and young people;
· an essential requirement identified in the early stages of development was that ContactPoint must be a national system to ensure it works for children who receive services across, or move across local authority boundaries.
· Because ContactPoint will be automatically updated from existing systems, practitioners will not need to enter the same information multiple times.
2.5 What information will be held on ContactPoint?
ContactPoint will contain the following basic information:
· name, address, gender, date of birth and an identifying number of all children in England (up to 18th birthday);
· name and contact details for:
o parents or carers;
o educational setting (e.g. school);
o primary medical practitioner (e.g. GP practice); and
o other services working with the child.
There will also be the facility to indicate if a practitioner is the lead professional for a child and/or if they have completed an assessment under the Common Assessment Framework.
Explicit consent will be required to record contact details for sensitive services (defined as sexual health, mental health and substance abuse). Where these practitioner contact details are recorded, only an indication of an unspecified service would be visible to the majority of users.
ContactPoint will NOT contain any case information (such as case notes, assessments, medical data or exam results). There has been some misinformation about what the system will hold in the national press and media and we anticipate further concerns being raised by members of the public, particularly once Fair Processing Notices are issued to all parents within the county.
Assessments and rigorous testing will be undertaken by independent security experts during build and before the system goes live to ensure that it is as secure as possible. Once operating, there will be continuous auditing of all use of the system.
3. Potential risks
At this stage in the implementation of the project nationally, and with early adopters going live from October 2008, we should expect more media attention nationally and potentially increased anxiety at a local level.
4. Background
ContactPoint regulations, which came into force on 1st August 2007, provide the legal framework for the system under section 12 of the Children Act 2004. These regulations set out which organisations will be expected to supply data to ContactPoint and which roles will be expected to be users of the system.
Local implementation is funded by the ContactPoint grant. This is ring-fenced in 2008-09 and 2009-10. In 2008-09, this grant totalled £327,531; we expect a similar figure for 2009-10. From 2010, the implementation phase of the project will have been completed and steady-state funding will come through the Local Area Agreement.
5. Recommendations
Members are invited to note and comment upon the report.
Appendices:
Appendix 1 - DCSF ContactPoint factsheet
Appendix 2 - DCSF Implementation timetable
Appendix 3 - DCSF ContactPoint Q and A
Appendix 4 - Deloitte Security Review on ContactPoint – Executive Summary (February 2008)
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Item 4 - ContactPoint