Letter RE: ContactPoint

27th March 2009


Dear Pupil, Parent or Carer

Child Database

Legislation has been passed requiring Local Authorities to set up and run a
nationwide database which will contain basic details about every child and young
person under the age of 18 who is ordinarily resident in England. This database is to
be known as ContactPoint. Alongside the child’s demographic information, it will
contain the name and contact details of professionals working with them, creating
in effect each child’s personal “telephone directory”. It will not contain any case
information or free text. The purpose of the database is said to be to enable
practitioners working with children to find out quickly who is working with the same
child. This is with a view to saving many wasted hours of practitioner time which can
then be better spent in service delivery.

The Independent Schools Council is opposed to the introduction of ContactPoint. It
has lobbied vigorously against it since the inception of the idea on the basis that: -
• it is an unjustified interference in the privacy of the majority of children and
their carers;
• it will put some children at risk through data theft or loss;
• it will be a register of poor quality data which may create a misleading or
unhelpful impression of the child;
• it will not facilitate early intervention.

Nevertheless this school will shortly be required, along with every other in England, to provide pupil data to our Local Authority to populate the database. At the same
time, the Local Authorities will be obtaining data from many other sources, the
national register of births, doctors surgeries, child benefit records and so on.

Stage One – Building the database
Initially the data we will be required to give the Local Authority will be simply the
name, address, date of birth of each child ordinarily resident in England and the
contact details of each of their parents (including addresses and mobile phone
numbers). We will be required to provide the basic data on dates to be specified by
the Secretary of State for Children Schools and Families. It is not yet clear how often
this will be but it is likely to be at least annually and could be termly.

When the first date for disclosure is specified we will write to you again to alert you of
the date and to send you a copy of the data we intend to disclose about your child
for you to check. We will assume that pupils are ordinarily resident at their parents’ address. Where we hold addresses for both parents in England, we will assume that the child is ordinarily resident in England. Where we have an address outside of England for at least one parent, we will ask you to indicate the residency status of your child and be guided by your response.

Stage Two - Shielding
Once the data has been sent to the Local Authority, it is the task of the Local Authority to upload it to ContactPoint. Before the database goes “live” the Local Authority will then “shield” the details of children and adults who could otherwise be put at risk. “Shielding” is undertaken on a case by case basis by the local authority
implementation team. If you wish to apply for your details to be shielded, you should contact the LEA.
We will remind you of this again when we have a date for data provision to alert
you.

Stage three – “Go live”
When the database goes “live” for practitioner use, in around October 2009, it is
estimated by the Department for Children Schools and Families that it will be
accessible by in the region of 390,000 professionals who work with children. (Others
have estimated that it will be accessed by many more.) These could include, for
example, social workers, hospital doctors, police, youth offending teams, family
support workers and specified employees in schools. All those who access the
database will require enhanced CRB checks at three-yearly intervals and will have
to undergo training and accreditation for security purposes.

In this school it is planned that the database will be accessed only by the Headmaster, School Nurse and the Admissions Secretary who will all receive security training and accreditation.

Stage four – Noting professional involvement
After ContactPoint goes live, professionals who provide additional services to
children and young people will be required to log their involvement by noting their
contact details against the name of the child on the database. Generally this will
not require the consent of the pupil or their parent(s). The exception to this will be
where the involvement relates to a “sensitive service”.

A sensitive service is a service relating to sexual health, mental health or substance
abuse. In the case of these services, professionals will need the express, informed
consent of the child or young person to log the service unless they consider that
there is reasonable cause to suspect that the child is suffering or likely to suffer
significant harm. There is no provision for parents to be able to consent on behalf of
pupils to the logging of sensitive services.

Schools will likewise be required to log the contact details of professionals who
provide school-based “specialist or targeted services” to children. These are defined
widely to mean “any service which is not normally provided to all persons of a
particular age group”. There is no limit on what this might include. Attending an
independent school falls within the definition. Additionally, as you know, this school
provides many additional services relating to sports, music, recreational activities as
well as those relating to extension of studies for the gifted and talented, learning
support and the services of our School Nurse. No guidance has been provided, and there is no provision in the law, for schools to be able to use their discretion as to which services it is appropriate to log. The services which the Department for Children Schools and Families have asked us to log are learning support and those of the School Nurse, where the involvement of these services is more than trivial.

It is vital in the case of each of the services that children and young people shoulbe able to continue to access them without fearing that a record will be made on a national database. There is also the concern that as thresholds for accessing support are lower in this school than in many others, to log individual involvements could create a false impression about pupils. After consulting with a representative group of experienced Heads and practitioners from a range of professions working in independent schools, the Independent Schools Council has recommended that for every pupil we log the following statement:“For information about additional school-based services, if any, please contact [X]”

Next steps
We anticipate that parents will wish to know more about ContactPoint and some
may wish to express concern. More information is available on the Every Child
Matters website.

You can also contact our local implementation officer Mrs Fitzgerald.

To comment on ContactPoint, you can also contact the press or your local M.P.
through Write to them.com. You may wish to copy your comments to the
Independent Schools Council to follow up on your behalf: legal@isc.co.uk.

Yours faithfully

DGC