The Department for Education (DfE) has published a guidance document on the use of case management systems in children’s social care.
It emphasises the importance of service and IT teams working together and holding conversations with potential suppliers ahead of any procurement exercise.
The document, published earlier this month, highlights several of the familiar elements of good practice in developing digital services, including assessing needs and requirements, accessibility issues, data protection and understanding the system options.
The latter point includes a consideration of whether a system will provide a foundation that could be built upon, whether the supplier shows an appetite for continued system development, how staff will be recruited and retained to support it, and how data entry can be minimised with the removal of any duplication of effort.
Will Quince MP, parliamentary under secretary of state at the DfE, pointed to the guidance in response to a parliamentary question this week – although referring to it in the future tense.
Supporting local authorities
“The guidance is aiming to support local authority planning, procurement, and implementation of case management systems,” he said.
“We are also working across government to observe how data and technology can be used to enable better multi-agency information sharing in safeguarding. This includes an investigation study on the feasibility of adopting a consistent child identifier.”
