Trafford gets integrated child system

Trafford Council has deployed Liquidlogic’s Protocol Integrated Children’s System to make it compliant with government requirements on integrated children’s systems.

Public sector software supplier Liquidlogic said its ICS would make the council children and young people’s service compliant with ICS phase 1, 1b and 1c of the Department for Children, Schools and Families requirements. It said Trafford wanted a system that was DCSF compliant and that logically followed the ICS process in a user friendly manner and could be accesses across different multi-agency services.

The company, which has 20% of the children’s services market, said it was selected after a rigorous tender process which shortlisted three suppliers.

Margaret Woodhouse, interim director of children’s services at Trafford, said integrated working and the ability to share information across multiple agencies was a fundamental element of the council’s approach to delivering children’s services.

She added: “Multi-agency working is essential for any social service if it is to ensure they have a holistic view of a child’s wellbeing, regardless of location or which team last updated their case load.

“We were looking for an ICS system that empowered our practitioners to do their job to the best of their ability and trials of Liquidlogic’s ICS showed that it was by far the most user friendly system.”

Liquidlogic said Trafford intends to fully integrate its existing eCAF solution with the new ICS to further support its commitment to multi-agency integrated working.

Denise Harrison, sales and marketing director for Liquidlogic, said: “Trafford’s commitment to integrated working means that its social workers can now work collaboratively across the entire borough to identify needs early and improve the overall safeguarding of children and young people in the district.”

The government has given a £15m capital grant to local authorities in 2010-11 to spend on improvement of their electronic social care system for children’s social care. All local authorities are eligible for the funding which is not conditional on compliance with national specifications.