Clause 9 - Information databases

Part of Children Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 9:15 am on 21 October 2004.

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Photo of Margaret Hodge Margaret Hodge Minister of State (Education and Skills) (Children) 9:15, 21 October 2004

Many thanks, Dame Marion, for being prepared to wait until I arrived before starting the proceedings. I apologise for nearly being late.

The debate on the clause is one of the most important debates that we shall have on the Bill, and I am pleased that we have time to consider the issues properly. The measure is one of the most complex parts of the transformation agenda that we have set for ourselves and of the whole-system change that we want to achieve in children's services. We want to build all the services around the needs of the child, get multi-agency working going, and move to an agenda of prevention, to which the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) referred.

Let us return to the reasons why we are going down this road. I think that all hon. Members accept this. When I read the report on Victoria Climbie's death and the other reports that we have had over the past 25 years on the tragic and often unnecessary deaths of children, I saw that something that always comes up is the failure of professionals, either within one agency or across agencies, to share information properly. We are trying to get people to work together and share information at an appropriate stage, and that is why we are moving down the road of providing a tool for professionals. It is no more than a tool. The creation of databases will support better information sharing between professionals within an agency and across agencies.

If we do not go down the database route, we will still have to introduce a set of new protocols, ways of working and regulations for professionals to ensure that information is shared better. The databases are one of many tools, but an important one. It is critical that we tackle some of the complex issues raised by hon. Members, face up to some of the tensions within those issues and try to resolve them in as open and collaborative a way as we can across the political parties, so that we can provide an effective tool that will enable professionals to share information and thereby perhaps prevent child deaths in the future. That is the whole purpose of the idea.

The Government's record—the public sector's record—on establishing new IT systems is dire. We all accept that. That was the case as much under the Conservative Government as under the Labour Government.