ContactPoint
What is ContactPoint and why do we need it
ContactPoint is a new tool that is being developed nationally to enable professionals delivering services to children to identify and contact one another easily and quickly, so they can work together for the benefit of children, young people and families.
These details will include the contact details of: the general practice where they receive primary health care, the school they attend and of other practitioners that may be working with the child.
ContactPoint will not hold assessment or case information or subjective observations about a child. Access to ContactPoint will be restricted to professionals who have undergone Extended Criminal Records Bureau checks and security for access to ContactPoint will be extremely tight.
It is important to understand that ContactPoint is part of the Every Child Matters Change for Children programme and is one of a number of new processes/tools being put in place to help support multi-agency working. This programme now comes under the new DCSF (Department for Children, Schools and Families) and the new Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families - Ed Balls.
ContactPoint will cover all children and young people in England up to the age of 18 (and between the age of 18 and 25 with the young person’s permission). Its Regulations and Guidance fall under Section 12 of The Children Act 2004.
Current Position
All 150 local authorities in England have been given the task of setting up a local project team to communicate ContactPoint to professionals working with children in their area. The project team need to identify who in our area is eligible to be a user of ContactPoint. Not all professionals working with children will automatically be given access to ContactPoint. The new regulations have identified certain groups of the children’s workforce who will need access to ContactPoint to improve their ability to find and contact other professionals working with a child.
Due to publicity regarding data security issues that occurred in 2007, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families decided to commission an independent security review of ContactPoint’s security procedures. This was announced to Parliament in a Written Ministerial Statement on 27th November 2007.
The objective of the review was to provide an independent assessment of the controls in place around the security of information to be held on ContactPoint.
The Main Outcomes Of The Deloitte Security Review
- The report acknowledges that security appears to be ingrained within the ContactPoint Project.
- The report makes a number of minor recommendations for additional actions and controls to be put in place before the system goes live, to further reduce the risk that information security could be compromised.
ContactPoint Security Policy and Review will be updated to reflect changes as a result of ongoing work on security, including addressing the recommendations in the report.
Go Live
Due to the above security review taking place the “go live” dates have been revised. The London Borough of Barnet is now due to go live with ContactPoint 16 April 2009.
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