Supplementary written evidence: letter
from Ms Lesley Longstone, Director General, Young People,
Department for Children, Schools and Families
1. At the oral evidence session on Tuesday
27 November, I undertook to write to the Committee in response
to Question 36, concerning how the Department is communicating
information on the ContactPoint project to the public and to children
in particular.
2. For reference, I have attached the written
evidence that the Department sent to the Committee prior to the
oral evidence session on the draft ContactPoint regulations on
10 July this year. This document sets out the project's approach
to communications and stakeholder engagement and gives details
of the many ways in which children, young people and families
have already been engaged and informed.
3. Since that evidence session, the Department
has invested considerable time and effort in listening to and
communicating with the public about the ContactPoint project.
As ContactPoint is developed, we have posted regular information
and updates onto the Every Child Matters (ECM) website (www.ecm.gov.uk/contactpoint).
4. We are also developing "age appropriate"
materials targeted specifically at children and young people.
In the next few weeks, these will be sent out to our delivery
partners, both local authorities and our national partners such
as Bardardo's, NSPCC and NCH. They will be used not only to respond
to public enquiries, but also more proactively to involve and
inform children and young people as we move closer to deployment.
For example, this might take place through forums or meetings
with children, young people and families at which stakeholders
wish to provide information about ContactPoint or introduce the
project in the context of other ECM initiatives.
5. The Department fully recognises its responsibility
under the Data Protection Act to inform people that their data
will be held on ContactPoint. However, we believe—and we
have taken advice from the Information Commissioner's Office on
this point—that it would not make sense to undertake a mass
communications exercise on this point so far in advance of ContactPoint
coming into being. The proper time for this will be around the
time that ContactPoint goes live, which is in line with best practice
in this area.
4 December 2007
Annex: ContactPoint: communications, stakeholder
engagement and implementation
1. This paper supplements the Explanatory
Memorandum which accompanies the draft Regulations. It sets out
the ContactPoint project approach to stakeholder engagement, communications
and implementation.
2. The project has worked hard to engage
stakeholders and is particularly pleased to be working in partnership
with a number of national children's charities (KIDS, Barnardo's,
NSPCC, NCH and the Children's Society) and important agencies
that support and protect children (the Children and Family Court
Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) and the Child Exploitation
and Online Protection Centre (CEOP)) to deliver and implement
ContactPoint.
Communications and stakeholder engagement
3. The stakeholder group is diverse and
large, but can be broadly summarised as:
a) Delivery Partners—local authorities
and national partners (eg Barnardo's);
b) children's workforce—those providing
support and services to children, young people and families; and
c) general public, in particular, children,
young people, parents and carers.
4. The project has taken a number of approaches:
a) established reference and implementation
support groups:
i) Information Sharing Advisory Group (ISAG),
made up of senior representatives from more than 50 organisations
representing a wide range of stakeholders, such as 11 Million
(previously known as the Office of the Children's Commissioner),
the Information Commissioner's Office, children's charities, teacher
unions, social care and youth justice organisations and health
bodies (many of the Royal Colleges, the British Medical Association
and the General Medical Council);
ii) Local Authority Implementation Support
Group and the Local Authority Early Adopters Group; and
iii) Children and Young People Reference
Group.
b) produced communication materials, using
a variety of media:
i) one-page factsheet, and a booklet—Making
it Happen—which includes information about ContactPoint.
Several hundred thousand of both have been distributed widely;
ii) regular newsletter which has a distribution
of several thousand key stakeholders;
iii) number of pages on the Every Child Matters
website: www.ecm.gov.uk/contactpoint; and
iv) several articles in a range of newsletters,
including "in house" publications like the Sure Start
Magazine.
5. The project engages with a wide range
of stakeholders through conferences and meetings—it is sufficiently
well resourced to be able to cover a significant number of events,
organised by the project or by others. Some members of the national
and specialist press were briefed earlier this year.
6. Our Delivery Partners are also communicating
locally with stakeholders; the project has provided tools to support
this work.
Children, Young People & Families
7. Children, young people and families are
key stakeholders. Their views, concerns and issues they raise
have played, and will continue to play, an important role in the
development of ContactPoint. Some highlights of activities already
undertaken or underway are listed below:
a) in September 2003 children and young people
were asked for their views on proposals contained in a child-friendly
version of the "Every Child Matters" Green Paper, which
included proposals which led to the development of ContactPoint;
b) a number of local systems have been developed
by trailblazer local authorities. Responses from families consulted
on having information on those local systems was very positive—for
example, of more than 100,000 people asked by Sheffield local
authority, only two people asked for their details not to be included.
More generally, face-to-face and survey feedback was generally
very positive from both children and young people, and from parents
and carers;
c) in 2006, the ContactPoint Project published
a plan for working closely with children, young people and families:
"The Information Sharing Index[1]—Children,
young people and families have their say".
This plan, together with a child-friendly version, is available
to download from www.ecm.gov.uk/contactpoint. The plan identified,
and drew upon, a range of research and other studies about the
views of these stakeholder groups, both on ContactPoint and information
sharing more broadly. A Children and Young People Reference Group
was established. The group met on nine occasions to input into
policy and help the project understand their views so appropriate
communications materials are developed. A report on the implementation
of the Plan will be available later this summer;
d) ContactPoint arranged, through organisations
such as the Commission for Social Care Inspection, British Youth
Council and Triangle, for around 300 children and young people
to be consulted (in discussion groups and by web survey) on the
draft Regulations. Also, a wide range of parents and carers participated
in regional focus groups held around the country and completed
email questionnaires. A similar scale of engagement is underway
for consultation on the draft ContactPoint Guidance;
e) the Project has established a close working
relationship with the National Children's Bureau (NCB)—a
member of ISAG. The Young NCB Network has been briefed on ContactPoint
and saw a demonstration of a local trailblazer system, similar
to (but not the same as) the design of ContactPoint;
f) Delivery Partners have arrangements in
place for consulting children, young people and families and include
ContactPoint within these arrangements; and
g) children, young people and parents and
carers were consulted, through focus groups, about the name for
the system.
8. The consultations have shown that children
and young people understand the benefits of information sharing,
and the ContactPoint system. Understandably, they seek reassurance
around the need to ensure the information held on the system will
be secure and accurate, and that access to ContactPoint will be
limited to those who need it to do their job. Processes have been
put in place to address these concerns, including placing conditions
on access, requiring users to give a reason each time they access
a record and limiting the number of records returned by a search.
9. The feedback we have received from the
children and young people consulted will inform the development
of communication materials for use with children and young people.
We intend to consult further with children, young people and their
parents and carers to ensure the materials developed are appropriate
and address their interests, issues and concerns.
Implementation
10. ContactPoint will be implemented across England
and we are committed to ensuring that the tool is available in
all local authorities by the end of 2008. In order to achieve
this we have, among other things:
a) funded Delivery Partners to enable them
to undertake the necessary preparation work, prior to deployment
of ContactPoint, including engaging with local partners across
the children's workforce;
b) appointed 11, regionally based, Implementation
Coordinators (ICs) to provide one-to-one support to Delivery Partner
project managers. ICs also run bi-monthly workshops to support
networking and facilitate communication;
c) developed readiness assessment criteria
and provided a web-based tool for Delivery Partners to assess
and report their progress to the ICs and the national Project
Team. Through this website, Delivery Partners are able to access
a number of practical tools and guidance materials, developed
in consultation, to support pre-deployment (and, in time, deployment)
and help ensure a nationally consistent approach;
d) developed and deployed a tool for Delivery
Partners to help them assess and improve the quality of their
data—the Local Data Quality Tool;
e) Delivery Partners have undertaken or are
undertaking a number of specified and timetabled activities to
ensure continued progress towards readiness. For example, analysis
of the workforce to identify potential users and an analysis of
the case management systems (CMS) that could provide data to and
possibly a means to access ContactPoint (provided the CMS is sufficiently
secure);
f) held workshops twice a year, in every
region, to provide a national update, seek feedback and provide
an opportunity for the national Project Team to communicate directly
with Delivery Partners. 100% of the Delivery Partners have attended
these workshops and feedback is very positive;
g) involved potential users in developing
the design, build and operation of ContactPoint—for example,
the review of aspects of the detailed design, to develop Best
Practice Processes and, in due course, to test the system so that
it works effectively; and
h) established early adopters (EAs)—17
LAs and 1 NP, who are progressing "pre-deployment" preparation
work earlier than other Delivery Partners. EAs receive additional
support to reflect the extra work they are doing. EAs will access
ContactPoint four months prior to other Delivery Partners to "road
test" deployment.
11. The project has had a substantial amount
of positive feedback about how implementation is being managed—from
Delivery Partners, other stakeholders, other parts of central
Government and the media.
1 ContactPoint was previously known by the working
title of "Information Sharing Index". Back
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