Against ContactPoint: Latest


by Dave Hill    
2:40 pm - December 5th 2007

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The 10 Downing Street petition against the planned database on children – which I wrote about here on Monday – now has over 1,000 names. It’s open until 20th December. Sign now and while you’re in fighting mood urge your MP to sign the Early Day Motion of Annette Brooke MP, Lib Dem spokesperson on children, asking the government to “reconsider its decision to proceed” with the scheme. You could raise the matter with your local schoolteachers too.

I’ve had an indication that the government may be adjusting its defence of ContactPoint. A correspondent tells me of a colleague who wrote to Ed Balls mentioning the invoking by ministers of the Victoria Climbie case as the primary reason for the database being set up. Beverley Hughes has been especially quick to do this as a way of countering critics. I’m told Balls’s reply included the following;

“In your letter, you assert the Government is introducing ContactPoint chiefly to prevent another terrible case like that of Victoria Climbie. This is not the case. The chief purpose of ContactPoint is to improve the efficiency of children’s services by freeing up practitioner time.”

My correspondent remarks that offering bureaucratic convenience as justification for reducing family privacy is unacceptable. Agreed. The same source also remarks:

“The government comments fail to mention that if you want to know a child’s GP school, etc YOU CAN ASK THE CHILD OR PARENT. They keep talking as if there were no other route than IT. It’s worth reminding people that the old fashioned low-tech solution of being polite and asking is still a viable option. Some LAs [local authorities] report [during pilot schemes] that users don’t know who they are in contact with. We should not ask families to give up privacy to compensate for incompetent professional practice.”

Agreed again. ContactPoint is a dud. And I haven’t even mentioned E-Caf yet.
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About the author
Dave Hill is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. He is a novelist, blogger, journalist, married resident of Hackney in east London and father of six children. His novels are about family life. Also at: Comment is free.
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Story Filed Under: Blog ,Campaigns ,Civil liberties ,ContactPoint


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Reader comments


1. Terri

What’s so astonishing about Ed Balls’ reply is that those of us in ARCH, and my co-authors of the FIPR report to the Information Commissioner, have endured four years of bile and ad hominem attacks for daring to say that this whole database agenda was launched via a despicable piece of shroud-waving. The spin has been so effective that even now people still believe that Contactpoint/eCAF is something to do with child protection.

So, just for the record: no, it has nothing to do with Victoria Climbie, the plans were under discussion long before the Laming report into Victoria’s death, and although the government uses the phrase ‘at risk’ to describe the children whom they maintain will benefit from Contactpoint and eCAF, they do not mean ‘at risk of significant harm’ (the generally understood meaning).

The phrase has been quietly hijacked and redefined as ‘at risk of social exclusion’. The government estimates that this covers up to 50% of children, who will need extra services in order to meet the ‘five outcomes’ set out in the government’s original ‘Every Child Matters’ green paper.

2. septicisle

Consider the petition signed.

3. DonaldS

Thanks for writing about this, Dave. I signed the petition yesterday.

I’ll try and write to Diane Abbott tomorrow.

4. Ian

I will definitely write about this. The amount of misleading of the public by the Government regarding the purpose of this piece of data centralisation (and also the NHS Spine which I consider to be the other side of the same coin) has been immense.

The HMRC fiasco has clearly taught them nothing.

5. Sunny Hundal

Have signed it too.

6. Dave Hill

Thanks for those supportive and informative comments. Terri is a signatory to letter about ContactPoint in today’s Guardian…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2222595,00.html

…and the ARCH blog she maintains is a mine of valuable information about ContactPoint, E-Caf and related issues.


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