To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families which local authorities have made representations to his Department on the shielding of data on the ContactPoint database; and if he will make a statement. (266661)

We have been working closely with all local authorities to ensure those records which need it are appropriately shielded. All local authorities have been regularly reporting progress and notifying us of any data issues they have encountered, during this pre-deployment phase, as we requested. As of 24 March, 13 local authorities have provided additional written feedback so far via letters or e-mails.

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) for what reasons ContactPoint data will be kept for six years after a person reaches the age of 18 years; (266818)

Six years is the accepted standard for retention of information in accordance with the provisions of the Limitations Act 1980. Once a person reaches age 18 their ContactPoint record will be moved into archive. Once in archive, the record will only be accessible by data managers for a period of one year. After that it is only accessible by our system suppliers in order to support investigations under section 47 of the Children Act 1989, any serious case review or investigation into a child death.

Once a record reaches the end of its archive period, an automatic batch process (purge) permanently deletes it from ContactPoint.

On receipt of notification of death of a child, ContactPoint retains the child record for one year before it is moved to the archive.

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what estimate he has made of the expenditure which will be incurred as a result of the (a) delay in introducing ContactPoint and (b) the changes to data entry and shielding in the ContactPoint system. (268723)

The ContactPoint budget includes an appropriate contingency element and any additional costs that arise from developments made to the system will be met from those contingency arrangements. It has always been anticipated that this would be the case. We do not anticipate the overall costs for implementing ContactPoint exceeding the original estimate of £224 million.

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 2 April 2009, Official Report, column 1336W, on children: databases, which companies bid for his Department's ContactPoint contract. (269794)

In answer to the question I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 2 April 2009, Official Report, column 1336W.