Database proposals are still unclear

Details on the proposed children’s database, including its cost
and size, are still unclear, only two months before ministers are
expected to decide on its feasibility.

Department for Education and Skills officials working on the system
will present a business case to government in September, based on
consultations and evidence from 11 information-sharing and
assessment trailblazers.

But Patrick Agius, team leader of the Information Sharing Index
Project at the DfES, told a conference this week it was still
too”premature” to provide details on how it would work.

Controversy has dogged plans for a database, which will hold basic
details on all children, since proposals were published in the
Children Act 2004.

Campaigners have argued that the database could breach civil
liberties.

Agius also admitted the government was “shooting in the dark” with
its efforts to establish how the database would work with existing
systems.