The Independent Schools Council is a politically independent, not-for-profit organisation representing 1,270 independent schools educating more than 500,000 children. It exists to promote choice, diversity and excellence in education, developing talent at all levels of ability and from all backgrounds.

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DCSF Consultation on Draft ContactPoint Guidance

27 July 2007

A DfES consultation on Draft Guidance for operating ContactPoint, formerly known as the Information Sharing Index, which it is intended to contain details of every child in England including:

name
gender
address
name of parent or main carer
name of school
name of GP
contact details of ‘practitioners' who have had dealings with the child

‘Practitioners' includes police, social services, specialist consultants, teachers and a whole range of other professionals.

ISC's view remains that the scheme is disproportionate and unsafe, likely to be an expensive failure and to put at risk more children than it helps. Detailed points are made in the consultation response on security, interference with family life, privacy, child protection and well-being. ISC adopts the conclusion of the Select Committee on Merits of Statutory Instruments which said in its report that:

‘The Government have not in our view conclusively demonstrated that a universal database is a proportionate response to the problem being addressed. While the Government have taken the need for security seriously, the scale and importance of the scheme increase the risk that any accidental or inadvertent breach of security, or any deliberate misuse of the data, would be likely to bring the whole scheme into disrepute.'

DfES consultation

Full ISC response:

Download Document(DOC Document - Size: 97.00kB)