Ministers have, after a period of consultation and market sounding decided to decommission National eCAF in 2012. This is consistent with Professor Munro’s view that we should remove constraints to local innovation and professional judgment that are created by prescribing approaches such as national IT systems. As part of the decommissioning process the Department will consider the options to secure value out of any Government owned assets.
National eCAF Decommissioning - supplier workshop 20 Feb 2012, London
As part of the process of decommissioning the National eCAF system, the Department for Education will be holding a workshop for suppliers or other organisations that may have an interest in developing IT solutions. The workshop will provide an update of our plans for decommissioning, including data migration, and outline the potential availability of any National eCAF assets for re-use.
There is availability for 2 people from each organisation to attend the workshop, which will take place 10:30-12.30 on Monday 20 February 2012. If you wish to attend then please email the national.eCAF@education.gsi.gov.uk mailbox. We will provide venue details and joining instructions when we send you confirmation of a place at the workshop.
Background
National eCAF was initially developed by the Department for Children, Schools and Families as the electronic enablement of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF). As with CAF, there was no requirement to use the system and take-up was voluntary. It was first released in 2009 to a group of early adopter organisations.
Consultation
In August 2011 the Department wrote to the 50 organisations that had signed up to use National eCAF to inform them that Ministers were minded to stop the Department’s support for National eCAF and to decommission the system. This was in view of the Government’s acceptance of a recommendation in final report of Professor Munro’s review of child protection, A child-centred system, that Government should remove constraints to local innovation and professional judgment that are created by prescribing or endorsing particular approaches, such as nationally prescribed approaches to IT systems. The Department also asked organisations to submit their views on this by 30 September 2011.
Market sounding
In parallel the Department carried out a market sounding exercise to explore the potential market for a National eCAF service operating without the Department’s financial and administrative support. This included a market sounding event held in September 2011.
We have taken into account responses from the consultation and market sounding exercises which have not provided compelling evidence that the Government should continue to fund the system.
The Government published this information as part of a ministerial update in Parliament on progress being made across the range of commitments in the Government response to the Munro Review, published in July.
Contact details
National eCAF team
Department for Education
Email: national.ecaf@education.gsi.gov.uk
