§ Mr. OatenTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether the Project Board to integrate finance, communication, human resources and case recording systems has been established by CAFCASS. [138759]
§ Margaret HodgeA project was started in 2001 to develop an integrated case management system, including finance and human resources. This project was stopped as it was judged to be too high a risk. Government best practice is to reduce risk by breaking down large IT projects into smaller, more manageable, parts. Separate finance and payroll systems have now been procured by CAFCASS.
A case recording project is now under way, to implement the key information elements for case management. A Project Board, chaired by the Chief Executive is managing this work. The case recording system is being designed to be compatible with the systems in place and those to be developed.
§ Mr. OatenTo 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 HodgeIn 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.