Children Act 2004 Information Database (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2010

My Lords, these amendments make eight modest changes to the Children Act 2004 Information Database (England) Regulations 2007, commonly known as the ContactPoint regulations. Before discussing the amendments, it may be helpful to first provide some background on the history and purpose of ContactPoint. The purpose of ContactPoint is simple. It is to allow practitioners to quickly find out who else is working with a child. This tool will facilitate better information-sharing between practitioners. From a number of serious case reviews, we know that this needs to be improved. However, ContactPoint is not just about safeguarding. Many children, perhaps as many as 50 per cent, will at some point need additional help and support. Practitioners have told us that one barrier to quickly providing this support is that it can be difficult and time-consuming to find the right person to talk to. In a survey of over 6,000 practitioners which my department conducted last year, we found that more than three-fifths of practitioners said that information about other practitioners involved with a child is not usually readily available. More than one-fifth of practitioners said that they never find this information despite their best efforts, and two-thirds of practitioners said that it is not easy to find information about whether a child is registered with a universal service, such as a school or GP. We have developed ContactPoint to overcome barriers such as these. ContactPoint gives practitioners quick access to the contacts they need so that they can work together to support children. We cannot know or readily predict which children will need additional services. Because of this, ContactPoint holds records for all children in England, but these records contain only very limited information. A ContactPoint record holds basic identifying information for the child or young person and contact details for the services working with them. The primary legislation for ContactPoint excludes the directory from holding case information, such as health records. National implementation of ContactPoint is now under way. This follows a successful early adopter phase: over 75 per cent of practitioners surveyed said that they would find ContactPoint useful in their work with children. Local authorities and national partners across England are now training practitioners to use the directory. Likely user numbers are estimated to be around 390,000, although the number and speed at which users are trained will be jointly determined with local authorities and national partners. This will be based on what is necessary to best ensure that ContactPoint is effective. Access to ContactPoint is granted only to those who need to use it for their jobs. All users must complete mandatory training, identity checks, and an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau disclosure which is reviewed every three years. Once implementation is complete, we estimate that ContactPoint will save 5 million hours of practitioners’ time each year, equivalent to efficiency savings of £88 million per year. Practitioners using the system are already seeing real evidence of its benefits. For example, a staff nurse in an A&E department told us: ""I’m spending far less time finding other practitioners working with the same child. ContactPoint is helping to make everything smoother, quicker and more efficient"." Throughout the development and implementation of ContactPoint, we have been committed to learning from users and other stakeholders. For example, we have consulted with over 1,000 children and young people since 2005, when we announced the intention to develop the directory. These amendments are based on what we have learnt since we began developing ContactPoint, and particularly on the advice of expert stakeholders. There was also a formal public consultation on the three most substantive amendments, which I will discuss in detail in a moment. These amendments do not alter the fundamental principles or design of ContactPoint. These modest changes will further align the operation of ContactPoint with its policy intentions, helping practitioners to make the contacts they need, to improve children’s well-being and keep them safe. One amendment, perhaps the most substantial, is necessary to address a recommendation in Sir Roger Singleton’s review of safeguarding arrangements in schools. Sir Roger recommended that DCSF take steps to ensure that pupils who receive education in schools in England, but who are not ordinarily resident in England, are covered by ContactPoint. The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families accepted all of the Singleton recommendations in a Written Ministerial Statement on 24 March 2009. As the Singleton recommendation highlights, because currently children must be "ordinarily resident" in England to be included on ContactPoint, this means that some important groups of children in England are excluded. Aside from exceptional circumstances, a child is deemed to have the same ordinary residence as their parents. So, for example, as the regulations currently stand, children at boarding school in England, but whose parents live abroad, may be excluded from ContactPoint. To address the Singleton recommendation, we are proposing to change the regulations so that any child, ""in the area of a local authority"," in England should have a ContactPoint record. This means that all children who live in England, or who attend school in England, should be included on ContactPoint, regardless of their place of ordinary residence. Under the enabling provisions for ContactPoint in the Children Act 2004, and also under other legislation, local authorities and their partners have duties towards children who are, ""in the area of the local authority"." ContactPoint can help them meet these duties. The fact of where a child’s parents live should not exclude that child from ContactPoint, as the directory is a vital tool to help safeguard and improve the well-being of children in England. Another amendment ensures that ContactPoint can hold the contact details of parents who do not have parental responsibility or care of their child. It is important that these details are included on ContactPoint because parents without parental responsibility may still be in regular contact with their child, and be closely involved in their child’s life. They can also have a range of legal rights and responsibilities in relation to their child. So, in some circumstances it may be appropriate for practitioners to consult with them on decisions regarding their child. Including these parents’ details on ContactPoint will help practitioners to do this. The other six amendments are more minor, reflecting further technical changes necessary to ensure that ContactPoint can operate in line with its policy intentions, and to reflect the advice of expert stakeholders. For example, the amendments will change the terminology used to describe the non-universal services that are recorded on ContactPoint, from "specialist and targeted" to "additional" services. Stakeholders have told us that this is more widely used and less stigmatising. We have carefully considered the responses to the public consultation on the amendments. In light of this, and the generally positive responses, we have decided to proceed with the amendments that were proposed in the consultation document. While these amendments are quite minor changes, and do not fundamentally alter ContactPoint, together they mean that ContactPoint will be an improved tool for practitioners, helping to provide integrated support as soon as a child needs it. I commend these regulations to the House.