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Councils with social services responsibilities are being invited by the department for education and skills to bid to become pilots for the integrated children's system, a new integrated framework for working with children and families, writes Sally Gillen and Mike Simons.

Three councils will be selected to run ICS, which will be used to develop systems and training for practitioners in particular organisations and across agencies, for two years.

The pilots will be used to determine whether ICS is suitable for children of all agencies and abilities at each stage of the process, and whether it strengthens social work practice and processes, facilitates information sharing and supports multi-agency work.

Implementation of ICS will be part of the introduction of 'e-social care records' in 2005. Its development also supports wider government initiatives such as the identification, referral and tracking system, which is central to the forthcoming children's green paper, and is intended to facilitate information sharing across children's services.

But Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Simon Hughes has warned that the new tracking systems could be undermined because of their reliance on unproven IT.

Hughes told 'Community Care's' sister magazine 'Computer Weekly' that the government was "taking a big risk by pinning so much on the success of these projects".

"The people responsible for day-to-day child protection need effective case management systems. But to rely on a combination of expensive IT, some of which is still on the drawing board, is to multiply the risks both to children and the exchequer," Hughes said.

The closing date for pilot applications is 20 August. Contact Jim.Brown@doh.gsi.gov.uk