County council plans unified system under Capita deal to replace existing range of modules
Essex County Council is to roll out a single, integrated information management system for services around children in education, replacing the existing selection of non-interoperable modules managed by disparate suppliers.
It has signed Capita Business Services to provide a hosted solution to track and support all children and young people in education in the county, taking in early years support and school until further education or employment.
The new system will handle holistic case management for children and their families including their involvement with all council services, integrate with health records and payment systems and facilitate digital by default services.
Under the contract, all nine modules will be able to talk to each other rather than sit in separate non-interoperable systems. They cover functions such as special educational needs, transport, school admissions and free school meals, and the system will provide support for children and families services as well as education, learning and enhanced need.
There is also a requirement for it to link up with other partner systems such as those for social care, police and third sector databases.
The council has been using a system made up of modules provided by Capita and global education systems and services provider Tribal, among others.
Its education and lifelong learning department is currently participating in a user acceptance testing, the last phase of the software testing process, before the solution goes live on 3 May.
Image: Modified from Eric Chan, CC BY 2.0 through Flickr
This story was amended on 22 April to reflect an indication that the system is for use primarily in the education system.
