ContactPoint consultation

The department for Children, Schools and Families is assuring us that the general introduction of ContactPoint is on time, will be wonderful and keep all 11 million children in England and Wales much safer. It has reported a few minor changes. The press release tells us that 5 million hours of professionals' time will be saved. This does not tell us how much time this means per professional nor how much time has already been spent by professionals uploading detailed information onto ContactPoint and its dependent databases. Anyway, there is a consultation on these minor changes.

Public and independent schools are required to comply with the regulations and it is proposed that children in boarding schools, whose parents do not live in England, should be included. You can give your view but I wonder whether the parents of these children have been asked? I doubt it as few parents in England and Wales seem to be aware of ContactPoint and certainly weren't consulted.

Whilst our civil servants are beavering away at this, at the back of their minds is the fact that, if elected, an incoming Tory government would scrap the system.