Written question asked by Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 11 November 2003, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 20 November 2003. It was answered by Baroness Hodge of Barking (Labour) on Thursday, 20 November 2003 on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills.

Dept for Education and Skills

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, when CAFCASS practitioners will have the facility to amend the computerised records of the children with whom they work; what additional resources CAFCASS has identified for the implementation of a case management system; what the planned expenditure by CAFCASS is on the small scale computerised case record index for implementation during 2004. - Inc figure.

Answer: Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) when CAFCASS practitioners will have the facility to amend the computerised records of the children with whom they work; [138760] (2) what additional resources CAFCASS has identified for the implementation of a case management system; [138761] (3) what the planned expenditure by CAFCASS is on the small scale computerised case record index for implementation during 2004. [138762] Margaret Hodge: In its first year, CAFCASS implemented an IT infrastructure giving all staff access to email, word processing, spreadsheet, internet and intranet facilities. By building on this infrastructure CAFCASS will be able to implement, from May 2004, a case recording system for £125,000. This will provide a national networked case database. Maintenance of the system, including amending children's records, will be an administrative rather than a practitioner function. The case recording system is the first stage of wider case management systems. Once the case recording system is successfully implemented, further work will be done on the options and costs for further development and implementation of the remaining aspects of case management systems support.

Secondary information