back to article ContactPoint will cost more than thought

The government has revealed that the ContactPoint children's directory will cost just under £44m a year to run, £3m more than previously stated. Children's minister Beverly Hughes provided the figures in a parliamentary written answer on 9 March 2009. "Most will go directly to local authorities to fund staff to ensure the …

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  1. Edward Miles
    Stop

    Hmmm...

    "Government project cost more than originally planned!"

    In other news, the bear are Catholic, and popes defecate in the woods.

    Wait, I got something wrong there...

  2. Ash
    Joke

    In other news...

    Water is hot and fire is wet.

    Hmmm... This seems to be contagious!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Edward Miles

    "Wait, I got something wrong there..."

    Yep, everyone knows that bears are "Roman" Catholic.

  4. John Smith Gold badge
    Stop

    I really hate writing this

    But that's about 6.8% over 3 (or 4 depending on when your counting from) years. thats a compound rate of inflation of c2.15%, which seems pretty close to the real world.

    Er, well done on that.

    Note My basic view remains this is a massivley excessive and intrusive database which will be misused and should never have been built in its present form to begin with.

  5. Hollerith

    Umm....

    How can a delivered system cost that much to run? Or are they calculating the hourly rate of the admins and IT support (BOFH, I see you!)?

  6. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Stop

    Did we learn nothing from Olympic-gate?

    The HMG has not sodding idea how to price anything! Why is this a surprise? Gordo probably reckoned he could get the DB put for cash-in-hand like *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*!

  7. Dave

    The Awkward Fund?

    Have they factored into the budget to cope with those of us who aren't willing participants in all of this? I reckon every parent should bang in a subject access request for themselves and also one for each of their children, just to make sure what's stored on there is 'fully correct and up to date' (or ideally, total bollocks and completely useless). Chucking in a sprinkling of false child names in the requests ought to liven it up a bit as well, in case the prospect of a null result causes consternation in the data centre.

  8. Luther Blissett

    Pop goes the weasel

    > "This work has shown that, in general, children and young people understand the benefits of ContactPoint," she [Hughes] wrote. "Understandably, they want reassurance that the system will be secure and accurate; that practitioners will use their information appropriately and respect their privacy, and that access to ContactPoint will be limited to those who need it to do their job."

    As if respecting their privacy, and limiting access on a need to know basis, were paramount to children. Children assume, in their earlier years, their parents know everything - and that's why they always manage to pick up the pieces.

    What a weasel remark to say "they want reassurance that the system will be secure and accurate". The minister does not say whether children have been informed of the risks - presumably they haven't (since MiniLuv always tells the truth, and MiniTrue practises love).

    Logic says the more accurate the data, the less secure the children.

  9. Mike Shepherd
    Thumb Down

    "...children and young people..."

    "...children and young people understand the benefits..."

    Unfortunately, it's proving more difficult to convince anyone else.

  10. John Smith Gold badge
    Thumb Down

    @Hollerith

    If the government figure of 390 000 people with access to this is correct its about £113 ea per yr.

    They could not have possibly fallen for the old "This system is so simple to use you won't need to train them" rubbish and failed to budget for training time?

    Again.

    Or

    1100 staff @ £40k / year. Presumably setting up user ID's, data entry and admin will be de-centralised. Every major council, NHS trust and education authority will need someone.

    A simplistic architecture that did not realise how many sites would be dealt with, and how much support they would need (in the early stages at least) on site could grow staff numbers pretty fast. IMHO.

    Hmmmm.

    Outsourced hell desk service contract anyone? Isn't that one of Cap Gemini's stocks-in-trade?

    The cheapest way is still to ditch it.

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