Steve Doughty
UK Daily Mail
Oct 3rd, 2009
'Elitist' treatment: Celebrities and politicians can stay off the ContactPoint child database
Tens of thousands of politicians and celebrities will be allowed to keep their names off a new Government children's database, ministers said yesterday.
Their identities will be 'shielded' on the list which will carry details of 11million children in England and their parents.
The £224million ContactPoint database was designed in the aftermath of the Victoria Climbie murder in 2000 with the aim of ensuring that children in trouble can be identified by doctors, social workers or police officers.
Labour had already granted selected individuals the right to heavily restrict the information about their children.
Children's Minister Delyth Morgan said the change would merely extend practice as it applies currently with paper records.
However, no current records match the scale or ambition of ContactPoint.
Patricia Morgan, an author who writes about the family and abuse, said: 'This is very Soviet - the elite get entirely different treatment from everybody else.'
Tory children's spokesman Tim Loughton said the move showed the database was insecure and promised to scrap it if the party wins the election.
Ministers said that the 50,000 shielded families will include victims of domestic violence and those on witness protection schemes.
But town hall small print has revealed that 'celebrities, politicians, and other high-profile members of the public' will also be covered.
Most families will have names, addresses, contact details, social worker contacts and details of any sex, drug or mental health services they have been involved with.
Shielded families will have only the names, sex, date of birth and an identification number for their children listed.
Nearly 400,000 council and health workers, police officers and charity staff will be able to look at children's records on ContactPoint.
