Abolition of ContactPoint database could be harmful to disabled children

The government’s decision to scrap the controversial children’s database ContactPoint has been described as a retrograde step which could leave families of disabled children with less co-ordinated support.

Kevin Williams, chief executive of disabled children’s charity Kids, called for the government to retain data on disabled children or “go back to a stage where work with disabled children is less co-ordinated”.

“When we talk to families of disabled children it is still the case that professionals working with their children do not know enough about them or have not co-ordinated with other professionals who support the family,” he said.

Launched in January last year, ContactPoint contained the details of 11 million children in the country and information on which services they had contact with. Along with Barnardo’s, Kids was one of the national bodies trialling the programme before its launch. Williams added that he hoped there would still be some form of service for disabled children to ensure that the training Kids staff underwent to use Contactpoint was still applicable.

The coalition government announced the plans in a document outlining negotiated agreements yesterday. Other measures detailed included scrapping ID cards and a national identity register “to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour government and roll back state intrusion”.

Terri Dowty, policy director at Action on Rights for Children, welcomed the plans. “ContactPoint is a dangerous system and it has also diverted already scant resources away from child protection,” she said. Dowty has often raised concerns over the security of the information on the system. She said she hopes that scrapping the £224m database will allow the government to “re-focus on reversing the decline in child protection”.