ContactPoint to remain in use until a new system is found

In a letter to directors of children's services, Tom Jeffrey, director general for children and families at the department, said the system will be axed as soon as practicable.

A replacement system will help practitioners find out if others are working with vulnerable children, potentially through a "signposting" system.

As an interim measure, ContactPoint will remain in limited operation, with funding continuing until the end of this month and possibly beyond.

In due course, we will give notice as to when ContactPoint will cease to operate, Jeffrey said.

At that time, access to the system will be revoked centrally — local authorities and national partners will not need to do anything technically to enable this change.

Similarly, the removal of data from ContactPoint will be managed centrally, under strictly controlled conditions.

Guidance on the impact of the shutdown will be issued to local authorities at a later date.

Information on how practitioners should operate and manage ContactPoint in the interim have been issued, with details of how the database should be used and information managed.

Launched in January last year by the Labour government, the ContactPoint database contains the details of 11 million under-18s in England and the services with which they have had contact.

The project cost £224m to set up and it is estimated £216.9m in running costs will be saved over the next five years by scrapping it.