To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) what assessment has been made of the security of the eCaf system; (167442)

[holding answer 22 November 2007]: Security measures are a fundamental component of the national eCaf system design and all proposed security requirements have been reviewed by the Department’s IT Security Officer.

When a common assessment is undertaken and fogged on the national eCaf system, it will automatically notify ContactPoint that an assessment has been carried out along with contact details of the practitioner that can provide information about the assessment (usually the practitioner who performed the assessment). This will help to prevent duplication of effort, allow practitioners to make more informed decisions and respond in a coordinated way. There will be no access to the common assessment, nor any details within it, from ContactPoint. ContactPoint will be provided with limited information (which does not include any case information) extracted from the national eCaf and other systems using a one-way process. ContactPoint will not update the case record systems.

As with ContactPoint, the development of the national eCaf system had significant input from a range of practitioners and managers across a wide range of children’s services. Some of these individuals have been involved in the development of both systems.