Comments on: Against ContactPoint: Latest

By: Dave Hill

Dave Hill — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 07:21:53 +0000

Thanks for those supportive and informative comments. Terri is a signatory to letter about ContactPoint in today’s Guardian…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2222595,00.html

…and the ARCH blog she maintains is a mine of valuable information about ContactPoint, E-Caf and related issues.

By: Sunny Hundal

Sunny Hundal — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 04:44:32 +0000

Have signed it too.

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:40:17 +0000

I will definitely write about this. The amount of misleading of the public by the Government regarding the purpose of this piece of data centralisation (and also the NHS Spine which I consider to be the other side of the same coin) has been immense.

The HMRC fiasco has clearly taught them nothing.

By: DonaldS

DonaldS — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:34:50 +0000

Thanks for writing about this, Dave. I signed the petition yesterday.

I’ll try and write to Diane Abbott tomorrow.

By: septicisle

septicisle — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:48:25 +0000

Consider the petition signed.

By: Terri

Terri — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:51:15 +0000

What’s so astonishing about Ed Balls’ reply is that those of us in ARCH, and my co-authors of the FIPR report to the Information Commissioner, have endured four years of bile and ad hominem attacks for daring to say that this whole database agenda was launched via a despicable piece of shroud-waving. The spin has been so effective that even now people still believe that Contactpoint/eCAF is something to do with child protection.

So, just for the record: no, it has nothing to do with Victoria Climbie, the plans were under discussion long before the Laming report into Victoria’s death, and although the government uses the phrase ‘at risk’ to describe the children whom they maintain will benefit from Contactpoint and eCAF, they do not mean ‘at risk of significant harm’ (the generally understood meaning).

The phrase has been quietly hijacked and redefined as ‘at risk of social exclusion’. The government estimates that this covers up to 50% of children, who will need extra services in order to meet the ‘five outcomes’ set out in the government’s original ‘Every Child Matters’ green paper.