Temperama

eCAF. Eeek.

Terri Dowty writes:

"In 2003, we had a spate of phone calls from journalists wanting comments on new curfew powers that had come into force. 'It’s a bit late to do anything now,' we said, 'but you might want to hear about the Sexual Offences Bill that will make kissing between teenagers a criminal offence?' No response.

In 2004, we had a spate of phone calls from journalists to ask if it was true that two teenagers kissing each other was now a criminal offence. 'Yes,' we said, 'but it’s too late to do anything now. You might want to hear about the plans to create a national database of children, though…' 'We’ll ring you back,' they said.

In 2007, we had a spate of phone calls etc 'Where were you a couple of months ago, when something could actually have been done?' we asked. 'How come 4 years of press releases, reports and phone calls have barely raised a mention? But perhaps you would like to know about the plans to create a second national database that will contain a lot more than names and phone numbers?' It’s gone very quiet suddenly."

Point taken. You will be hearing from me soon.

ContactPoint: The Arrogance Continues

While backs were turned during the summer the government has been steamrollering the "Children's Index" - now known as ContactPoint - through the legislative process heedless of all concerns. A Lords’ Select Committee's warning that the system won't be secure has been ignored - this despite the government's admission that the offspring of celebrities and politicians will be given extra layers of protection, presumably because there is a risk of information about them falling into the wrong hands. Now the Association of Directors of Children's Services' top technology man has written to Christine Goodfellow, the project's manager at the DCFS.

He expresses fears that anyone abusing the system may well escape punishment for it and that local councils, which will run ContactPoint in their areas, are unlikely to be able to ensure that the data collected is accurate. The minister responsible for ContactPoint, Beverley Hughes, has a disgraceful track record for fobbing off objections to an expensive piece of e-bureaucracy which some critics believe will make it less likely that the children most in need of support and protection will obtain it. To its credit, The Times leads on this unsexy but important story today. Needless to say Terri Dowty at ARCH had been on the case already.

E-Balls

Ed Balls has made a few encouraging noises since taking charge of his brand new department. No sign yet, though, of his ditching the e-bureacractic approach to (supposedly) preventing harm to children that Blair brought in. Catch up on this with ARCH here and here.

ID Cards On R4

With the first government tenders for ID cards anticipated soon, File On 4 investigates the viability of the scheme tonight at 8.00. Sounds promising.

"Children's Index"

Now re-branded as Contact Point, our old friend the Information Sharing Index, which will contain data about all 11 million children in England, is being sneaked into The British Way Of Life.

Beverley Hughes

Children's minister Beverley Hughes was not promoted to the cabinet yesterday. Good news. More good news would be her removal from her present post when the remaining ministerial appointments are announced later today. Here's why.

Cost Of ID Cards

A good day for burying bad news?

Death By Statistics

Via CiF, Francis Sedgemore considers the sad death of cruelly mistreated Sally Clark.

"It is said that 'There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.'. I don’t agree. Statistics are just numbers. They are completely value-free, and, when misused, entirely information-free. Statistics help us to make sense of data and assess their significance, but this is true only when the scientific assumptions behind the analyses are made clear, and the questions asked of the data properly framed. The assumptions made by Roy Meadow were hidden, and the figure of 73 million-to-one handed down from on-high. The number has about as much significance as 42 being the answer to the meaning of life."

The whole excellent post is here.

Tickboxes 4 Toddlers: A Comment

Responding to this piece, CiF commenter Megan Rorke:

"I remember taking the youngest of my second set of triplets to a local clinic to have her hearing and general mental alertness checked. For the final test, the health visitor showed little Amelia some pictures. The first was of a man with a straw in his mouth and wellies on his feet, leaning aginst a gate behind which some cows milled about.

'Who's that?' demanded the nurse.

'Farmer,' quoth Amelia.

Nurse frowns. 'Try again. Who's that?'

'Farmer,' quoth Amelia, triumphantly.

Nurse tuts. 'Last time. Who's that you see?'

'Farmer?' quavers Amelia.

I peer over nurse's shoulder just in time to catch her putting an X in the box against picture 1.

'Why've you marked her down on that one?' I enquired.

'She got the answer wrong. She said "farmer".'

'Well, what should it be?' I enquired.

'Man.'

Unbelievable. Almost.

Toddler Targets

The Guardian reports:

"Babies will be assessed on their gurgling, babbling and toe-playing abilities when they are a few months old under a legally enforced national curriculum for children from birth to five published by the government yesterday. Every nursery, childminder and reception class in Britain will have to monitor children's progress towards a set of 69 government-set "early learning goals", recording them against more than 500 development milestones as they go. At five, each child will be assessed against 13 scales based on the learning goals and their score, called an early years profile, must be passed to the Department for Education and Skills."

Y'see, when I read stories like this one I don't get the Big Brother shudder so much as that despairing feeling that an awful lot of people will waste a whole load of their time making a pretty patchy job of gathering a ton of data that will, at best, tell nobody anything worth knowing but will enable a bureaucracy to compile a league table insisting that it did. Has Beverley Hughes nothing better to do? Knitting, maybe? Picking bits of dead skin from between her toes?