90% of children back Child Index

More than 90% of children believe it will be acceptable for doctors, school nurses and health visitors to access the forthcoming Children’s Index , according to new research.

The Office of the Children’s Rights Director ran discussion groups and carried out a web survey to discover the views of children and young people on the proposals for a children’s database.

The report, which included the views of 113 children, also found that children only wanted people who worked with them to have access to the database and that they were concerned about their privacy being putting at risk by the wrong people having access to their details.

The Children’s Index, to be implemented by the end of 2008, will contain demographic details on every child in England plus the name and contact details of the child’s school, their GP, other agencies or practitioners involved with the child and whether the agency or practitioner has information to share about the child, whether action with respect to the child is being taken and whether an assessment has been completed.

When asked to name who should be allowed to enter information on the index children nominated social services departments, the police, schools and colleges and hopsitals, doctors and clinics.

Children were concerned that the database should be secure and that those allowed to access the index should be security checked first and trained properly. Almost seven out of ten children agreed with the government’s proposal that people would need a password and ‘chip and pin’ token when they looked up information but 21% were still unsure about the security of the index. One child said: “It would be the simplest option to use a password and chip and pin, but this data is easily copyable so if someone got hold of it it would be easy to pass on information.”

Roger Morgan, Children’s Rights Director, said: “It is vitally important that children have a chance to have a say about proposals that affect them, especially when it relates to them being kept safe. All of the views have been fed back to the Government for them to incorporate into their consultation on the Children’s Index. The government has promised to take these views into account.”

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) plans to implement the index in early adopted local authoirities this summer before national rollout by the end of 2008. The DfES says the national index will be built and designed centrally and be as as coherent as possible with other IT programmes inbcluding Connecting for Health and the Integrated Children’s System.

Related documents

Children’s Consultation on the Children’s Index: A Children’s Views Report