Integrated Children's System
Children, Schools and Families
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what criteria were used to determine the specifications for the Integrated Children's System; and who prepared the specifications.
Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families; Minister for the North West), Department for Children, Schools and Families; Stretford and Urmston, Labour)
The Waterhouse report, published in February 2000, identified a number of shortcomings in children's social services, including the failure to record, retrieve and understand the significance of information about children. The Department of Health (DH) published the conceptual framework for the Integrated Children's System (ICS) as a consultation document in December 2002. It consisted of an integration of the "Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families" (issued under section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970) and the "Looking After Children" guidance, to provide an assessment, planning, intervention and reviewing model for all children in need. The conceptual framework was used to develop a set of requirements for local authorities to procure systems from IT suppliers to support the delivery of the model.
These requirements were subsequently specified in further detail by the Department, in response to a progress review of implementation by all local authorities in 2006. Each requirement was reviewed with reference to industry standard attributes intended to make it unambiguous, traceable, testable and measurable for compliance.
The published requirements documents detail in full the statutory and regulatory sources of each requirement. An additional source of requirements includes new criteria requested in consultation by local authorities in 2008. These documents are obtainable from the following public sources.
Integrated Children's Sys tem Minimum Compliance Criteria
www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/resources-and-practice/IG00189/
Integrated Children's System—Phase 1B Business Requirements Specification
www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/resources-and-practice/IG00228/
Integrated Children's System Phase—1C Business Requirements Specification