The National Register for Unaccompanied asylum seeking Children (NRUC) has been a candidate ContactPoint data source from the early days of the project due to the vulnerability of the children involved
NRUC is operated by London Councils using the organisational and business process infrastructure of Westminster City Council
NRUC is a national (England, Scotland and Wales) register that is available to all LAs to monitor involvements and child movements across LA boundaries; and through which LAs may make claims for the related costs that are settled by the Home Office
The NRUC website explains the purposes and benefits of NRUC as follows:
Since the year 2000 over 15,000 unaccompanied children have entered the UK seeking asylum. On arrival these children have no identification, information, documentation or guardians.
The UK has a clear international obligation to offer all children services equivalent to the indigenous population.
Local authorities must therefore provide accommodation, education, health and other services as necessary. However, the diverse and mobile nature of children supported by local government has hampered joined up care across authorities. At present the number of children, costs of care and length of stay in the asylum system remain relatively uncontrolled. This lack of coordination puts some of the most vulnerable people in society at risk.
Also the legislative restrictions placed on single adult asylum applicants and families has given rise to a perverse incentive for adults to claim to be children and families to present their children as unaccompanied.
To ensure continuity of care and prevent abuse of the asylum system, central and local government have built the National Register for unaccompanied Children (NRUC). For the first time data will be held and shared between local authorities responsible for the care of unaccompanied asylum seeking Children (UASC) and central government.
NRUC will establish and maintain a comprehensive database of information from the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) and local government Social Services Departments on Unaccompanied Seeking Children (UASC). [DN: IND is now BIA, the Borders and Immigration Agency]
Background to NRUC and ContactPoint
DCSF (as DfES) has been involved with NRUC since its formative days in 2003 due to shared policy responsibility with the Home Office, although full policy responsibility was placed formally with the Home Office in 2007
ContactPoint first engaged with NRUC in late 2005 and Patrick Agius sat on its project board for a period until early 2006
In October 2005 the case for taking data from NRUC was stated in a draft Data Supply Specification as follows:
The National Register of Unaccompanied Children is regarded as the definitive source of information on children entering England, Scotland and Wales without a parent or guardian.
The IS Index will most likely be initially populated using data from HMRC and DWP, which may in turn have collected data from the Registrar General. However because of the nature of the NRUC Database, it is unlikely that there will be a matching entry in the IS Index [DN: now ContactPoint] for children on the unaccompanied register until they have received services from other Agencies within the UK.
It is not expected that any data from National Register for Unaccompanied Children will be required to initially populate the IS Index, although there may be some requirements for test data and later trial data loads before the IS Index is fully implemented.
NRUC holds `raw' input data from the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) from the CID database. Local Authorities will maintain and confirm this data. When this occurs the record status will change to a NRUC `confirmed' record. It is proposed that NRUC sends only these confirmed records to the IS Index as the `raw; input data is considered to be in a temporary state and has many data quality issues which need to be managed through the NRUC business process.
Arrangements with OGD national data sources (NDS) have been agreed using a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) supported by a Data Supply Specification, which includes details of the operational arrangements
Arrangements with Local Authorities (LA) are being effected with Grant Letters resulting from a funding application and evaluation process, whereby ContactPoint enablement of a case management system (CMS) for data feed and user query may be funded in whole or in part through the LA acting as the lead organisation (LO) in association with its CMS supplier (unless an in house system)
The NRUC system was developed and is maintained by a commercial system supplier, Esprit, which also provides proprietary solutions to other customers
The NRUC proposal was received following discussions with the ContactPoint Design (data sourcing) team independently of and after the CMS submission process closing date being run with local authorities
The NRUC proposal has been presented akin to a CMS Submission with Westminster CC as the Lead Organisation and Esprit as their system supplier; although independently of the CMS Submission process itself
Esprit is also the supplier of a social care product, ShareCare, which is the subject of a wholly funded CMS funding submission with the LB Havering as the Lead Organisation
Esprit are proposing significant cost savings if permitted to perform the ContactPoint enablement of ShareCare and NRUC as a combined project, assuming mutually acceptable governance arrangements are agreed between the two Lead Organisations and ContactPoint
Subsequently, the NRUC submission has been evaluated using the evaluation criteria that were applied to the CMS Submissions. That evaluation is summarised as follows:
Technical approach - as for LB Havering, DCSF OFFICIALhas rated the NRUC technical approach as “3”, i.e. Exceptional
Project management - as for LB Havering which DCSF OFFICIALrated as “3” and said: “Good project approach and strong governance. Detailed project plan with sufficient contingencies scheduled in, resulting in extended period to achieve DF+QF functionality. Type accreditation for Lead Org for Oct is a little disappointing but brisk rollout is planned afterwards for all users by Feb. No evidence that staged approach would bring forward DF delivery. Balance between robust plan including contingency to early delivery - this plan suggests robust plan may be most appropriate.”
Data supply - as for LB Havering which was rated “2”, i.e. Competent (with no reservations) as the NRUC comprises a one national system sector that may be processed as though a CMS
User access - not applicable as NRUC is providing a data feed only
User community - not applicable as the NRUC is acting as a central consolidator of LA data providing data feed only as practitioners will have query access to ContactPoint through their local LA CMS's, e.g. primarily social care
Overall, the LB Havering and Westminster submissions are both of good quality (in comparison against others) and using the CMS evaluation criteria
Budgets, costs and timescales
ContactPoint budgets include £250,000 for the NRUC data feed
The NRUC proposal identifies a significant potential saving of £235,000 to ContactPoint were we to commission the ContactPoint enablement of both products as a composite project that would result in NRUC accreditation in Sep 08 and ShareCare in Oct 08. These dates are subject to the overall ContactPoint project revised plan.
The detailed cost figures are on pp33/34 of the NRUC submission (CMS funding application format) that in summary are:
Joint project saving….£(235)k
NRUC net costing……..£173k (approval sought)
LB Havering costs…….£347k (already approved)
Combined project……..£520k
The milestone stage payment profile proposed by NRUC is:
1 PID completed……………………….15%
2 Design & Specification completed…25%
3 Type Accredited……………………...40%
4 Instance Accredited………………….10%
5 Go Live ……………………………….10%
At the time of the submission being made (Sep 07) NRUC accreditation was scheduled complete in Sep 08 and ShareCare in Oct 08
If these dates are adhered to NRUC might Go Live at the time of ContactPoint Launch to Early Adoptors and ShareCare as determined by the revised LA Deployment slots
On this basis, milestone stage payments 1 & 2 could occur in financial year 2007-8 for both products according to the dates in their respective submissions and MS Project plans provided that the combined project starts on 7 Jan 08 or not later than 28 Jan 08. Otherwise, stage 2 would slip into 2008-9
Note: that the standard CMS submission payment profile in the LB Havering MS Project plan varies from NRUC as follows:
1 PID completed…………………………15%
2 design completed……………………..15%
3 development & Testing completed….40%
4 Type Accredited……………………….20%
5 Instance Accredited…………………...10%
The NRUC submission is from a source covering vulnerable children at the fringes of the our social systems and should be funded in full
The funding and governance processes being enacted for local CMSs should be used
Lead Organisation: Westminster City Council
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