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A senior policeman has criticised plans to create a children’s database that can be used by all agencies as a “mythical” concept, writes Sally Gillen.

Terence Grange, lead on child protection at the Association of Chief Police Officers, told MPs that the database for social services, education and health professionals to use was too ambitious.

Giving evidence to the Department for Education and Skills committee, which is looking at Every Child Matters, Grange said the police were still trying to secure a national child protection IT system from the Home Office, which would take two years to develop and cost £10 million.

He added that the database plans, set out within the Children Act, were “complicated” and needed to be “thought through”.

Chair of the Association of Directors of Social Services children and families committee John Coughlan warned that if the database was used a quasi child protection register it would be a “disaster”.

Earlier, chief executive of the NHS confederation, Gill Morgan, said primary care trusts would need to offer incentives to GPs to ensure they prioritised children.

GPs, alongside teachers, are among the groups of professionals who are exempt from the new duties to cooperate with others and safeguard children under the act.