Over-monitoring governments

While there is debate in Europe over the need for a centralized database of all internationally adoptable children, in the UK the government seems to take it even one step further, put all children in a centralized database.

Good grief. Have they gone mad in England? Who, but the organizations who maintain that database are getting any better from that. Family life is a private affair and unless a government has very compelling reasons to break that privacy, it should stay away from it. Governments have public affairs to look after, not people's private lives. On top of that the risk of abuse of those electronic records is far too big to even consider such system.

Child database will ‘pry into family life’

Daniel Hughes

A NEW national children’s database will contain details of relatives with drinking problems and of relationship difficulties between parents.

The register is intended to identify and help youngsters felt to have problems holding them back at school. It is not designed for children at risk of harm but for those with any health, learning or general wellbeing problems.

The highly personal data will be gathered as part of the common assessment framework, a key part of the government’s commitment to “early years” intervention.

Critics have attacked the move towards a computerised database - which will begin next year - as an unjustified intrusion into family life.

Liz Davies, a former social worker and senior lecturer in social care at London Metropolitan University, said: “It’s state intrusion that’s not warranted.

“When you are intruding into family life you have got to have a good justification and there is not a level of harm here that justifies that level of intervention. The threshold has been pushed down.”

It has also emerged that ministers suppressed a report that warned of serious difficulties facing a related project to centralise the details of children who have contact with care services.

Both schemes are components of the Every Child Matters programme that was introduced after the death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbié in 2000.

The common assessment scheme will encourage professionals such as teachers and doctors, who have contact with children, to pass on concerns to assessors who will then talk to families about a child’s homelife.

Details that will be logged on the register include “family routines”, evidence of a “disorgan-ised/chaotic lifestyle” and “any serious difficulties in the parents’ relationship”, according to government guidance.

Other information that will be collated includes signs of mental illness or alcohol misuse by relatives, quality of accommodation and “ways in which the family’s income is used”.

Assessments will be conducted in response to concerns about “any other aspect of [a child’s] wellbeing”.

The reports will be compiled only with families’ consent, but children as young as 12 may be deemed responsible enough to grant permission.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “The [scheme] allows those working with children and families to assess what they need and put it in place. This could range from extra catchup classes to counselling services.

“From a child’s perspective, it reduces the need for multiple assessments by different health, social care and education professionals and allows early identification and response to what they need.”

This weekend ministers were accused of keeping secret a government-commissioned report that raises “serious reservations” about the database of children who have come into contact with care services.

The report, by academics at the University of York, was based on four pilots of the Integrated Children’s System (ICS) in England and Wales. Their findings were presented to ministers in August 2006 but have only now been published under freedom of information laws.

The study concludes: “We believe that the ICS has yet to demonstrate the degree to which and how it is fit for purpose.”

It was obtained by Terri Dowty, director of Action on Rights for Children, a pressure group.

Dowty said: “It’s disgraceful that this report has been suppressed because it smacks of them [ministers] wanting to save face when what’s really important is children’s safety.”