Comments on: Dump The ContactPoint Database http://liberalconspiracy.org/2007/12/03/dump-the-contactpoint-database/ Left-wing news, opinion and activism Wed, 02 Dec 2015 19:06:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.11 By: MorrisOx http://liberalconspiracy.org/2007/12/03/dump-the-contactpoint-database/#comment-1869 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:35:37 +0000 http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2007/12/03/dump-the-contactpoint-database/#comment-1869 Completely, totally and utterly spot-on, Dave.

The Government is an abject case of OCD when it comes to database/software tool policy solutions, and I don’t know anybody who hasn’t remarked on the strange dislocation between the acknowledgement of a problem and the source of the solution.

I went to an event in Birmingham a 2-3 years ago (one of those large-scale consultation events about the future of health service delivery). I made around half a dozen suggestions about practical ways of overcoming stresses in the system, one of which made it all the way through to the final list. What was it? The importance of the portability of patient records and the way that consistent delivery could be achieved through smart cards. It was a fag-packet last minute addition and they leapt on it.

Just when is it going to occure to Brown that some decent ideas are actually being ruined by the delivery method?

]]> By: Dave Hill http://liberalconspiracy.org/2007/12/03/dump-the-contactpoint-database/#comment-1866 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:19:50 +0000 http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2007/12/03/dump-the-contactpoint-database/#comment-1866 Very important point, Luis Enrique. This is the system you’re thinking of but its critics argue – in my view convincingly – that ContactPoint would not solve the inter-agency communications problems which were among many highlighted by Lord Laming’s inquiry into the Climbie case. Laming’s recommendations included that a standardised system for recording basic details be brought in (no. 12) and that “The Government should actively explore the benefit to children of setting up and operating a national children’s database on all children under the age of 16.” (no. 17).

ContactPoint’s opponents believe that any possible benefits of a database on children were not explored properly partly because the government had another, long-standing agenda, which was and remains, to extend “e-government” as quickly as deeply into public service delivery as possible. ContactPoint is one result of this ambition. The terrible case of Victoria Climbie has been routinely invoked by children’s minister Beverley Hughes when defending ContactPoint. Her critics believe this to be disingenuous and a sort of moral blackmail (“You wouldn’t want another Climbie case to happen would you…?”). Hughes has also been extremely evasive.

Whatever the future for database use in whatever field, there is now surely an overwhelming case for putting everything on hold until their viability, security and real value have been reassessed.

]]> By: Luis Enrique http://liberalconspiracy.org/2007/12/03/dump-the-contactpoint-database/#comment-1863 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:03:19 +0000 http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2007/12/03/dump-the-contactpoint-database/#comment-1863 Is this the same system that was proposed after the Victoria Climbie case, to ensure that the different branches of the social services shared information, or something else?

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