The Children Act 2004 places additional responsibilities on local authority and partner organisations to maintain an accurate and up-to-date database of children.  Schools have an important role to play in helping to ensure that the data we hold on children is correct.  The following outlines why we need accurate data and how schools can help.

Why do we need an accurate and up-to-date central database of children?

Children are at risk if the data we hold on them are incorrect.  In particular, current school, home address and carer information has to be up-to-date so that each child’s whereabouts is known.  With over 200,000 children and young people in the City, individuals can all too easily be ‘lost within the system.’

The failure of support services to share their knowledge on children at risk can have tragic consequences.  The Children Act provides the statutory basis for cross agency information sharing and this is dependent upon each agency having access to accurate and up-to-date data.

The data we hold on children are also used to identify need and allocate resources, so it has to be correct to ensure that resources are directed appropriately.

What will the data be used for?

Birmingham’s children’s database is currently being used to track children, and to check that every child of statutory school age has a school place / is receiving education.

The database will be the basis of the shared information with other children’s services providers.  A child index derived from the database will hold information on name, address, date of birth, parent / carer, school, and GP.  Service providers will identify whether the child is known to them, including any causes for concern.

Eventually, schools will be able to access the central children’s database to see which other agencies and key professionals are providing support to their pupils. This is being examined as part of the Extended Schools pilot.

The database is also being used to determine the location of children with special educational needs so CRISP funding can be allocated appropriately, and to monitor the progress of SEN statements.

Using established data sharing protocols; we are extracting data from the database to provided data to, for example, the Connexions Service, thereby reducing the demands on schools.