Database closure could put children at serious risk, warns charity

The government’s closure of a database holding details of all 11 million children in England could lead to vulnerable children being seriously harmed, the NSPCC said today.

The £224m ContactPoint database was established by Labour after the Victoria Climbié child abuse scandal to improve child protection. Launched last year, it held the names, ages and addresses of all under-18s on a central computerised database, along with the contact details of their parents, schools and GPs.

Hundreds of thousands of teachers, police officers and social workers had access to the register to help co-ordinate who was working with children.

The controversial system was beset by delays, technical problems and fears over security, and the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition pledged to shut it down after taking office, saying it was “disproportionate and unjustifiable”.

But the NSPCC said today: “We are concerned that the government’s decision to shut down ContactPoint before a suitable replacement is in place could lead to vulnerable children being seriously harmed. Numerous reviews into child abuse cases have shown vulnerable children are at serious risk when professionals fail to share information speedily and effectively.

“It is vital we have a system that allows concerns about children to be spotted and acted on rather than being allowed to fall between the different agencies working with them.”

Penny Nicholls of the Children’s Society said her charity was disappointed that ContactPoint had been scrapped. “We had been working with the government on ContactPoint, to help support communications between those working with children and young people,” she said, adding: “As an organisation in daily contact with children and young people across the country, many of whom desperately need better coordinated, better quality services, we could see many situations in their lives where ContactPoint had the potential to significantly help professional responses …

“Our hope is that an alternative system is developed quickly to improve child protection and ensure that children and young people’s interests are kept at the centre of this development.”

Tim Loughton, the children’s minister, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning that there were three problems with the database.

“Firstly, we don’t think that spreading very thinly a resource which contains details of all 11 million children in the entire country, more than 90% of which will never come into contact with children’s services, is not [sic] the best way of safeguarding genuinely vulnerable children. Secondly, we’ve had longstanding concerns about the security of the system … and thirdly, it’s a civil liberties issue. This is a surrogate ID card scheme for children by the back door, and we just don’t think it’s necessary.”

He said fewer than 15,000 people had access to the database, but this was “still a lot”.

Asked to respond to those who pointed to the benefits of ContactPoint, Loughton said: “At the end of the day it’s not computer systems that save vulnerable children, it’s the professional social workers and others at the sharp end, properly motivated, trained and resourced to make the right decisions as to when intervention is necessary.” He said the system had become very bureaucratic and was “getting in the way” of those working to protect children.

ContactPoint’s launch last year was marked by pledges of support from many children’s charities.

At the time, Martin Narey, the chief executive of Barnardo’s, said: “Barnardo’s has been supportive of ContactPoint from the outset because we believe that this initiative has the potential to provide a quick and easy way for professionals to find out who else is working with a child, making it easier for us to spot more children of particular vulnerability. The testing of the scheme in the north-west, of which Barnardo’s has been a part, has been encouraging and I welcome the announcement that the system will now be rolled out across England.”

But today Barnardo’s issued a lukewarm statement refusing to criticise the decision to decommission the database, saying the charity was aware of the reasons the government was doing so.

“We acknowledge the commitment to explore the practicality of a new national signposting service to focus on helping practitioners find out whether another practitioner is working, or has previously worked with the same vulnerable child,” the statement read. “Barnardo’s will of course continue to help support the development of systems which are designed to keep children safe.”

Announcing ContactPoint’s closure last month, Loughton said he recognised the problem that the previous administration was trying to remedy.

“Frontline practitioners need to be able to provide support for our most vulnerable children when they move across local authority boundaries or access services in more than one area,” he said.

“Experience shows the potential value of a quick and reliable means of discovering whether another professional has worked with such a child. However, we have never agreed that ContactPoint was the answer.”

Loughton said he was looking at establishing a new national service focusing on helping people find out who is working, or has worked, with a child in another authority area.

In a statement on the Department for Children, Schools and Families (now the Department for Education) website in July, a spokesperson said: “Ministers do not believe that a database, which holds details of all children in England and which is accessible to hundreds of thousands of people, is the right way to help vulnerable children.”

The database was being destroyed “using government-approved security standards and processes”, the statement said.

Victoria Climbié died aged eight in 2000 after months of abuse. The report into her death highlighted the need to improve the exchange of information between agencies working with vulnerable children.