UK.gov hoovers up data on five-year-olds

The government obsession with collecting data has now extended to five-year-olds, as local Community Health Services get ready to arm-twist parents into revealing the most intimate details of their own and their child’s personal, behavioural and eating habits. The questionnaire – or "School Entry Wellbeing Review" – is a four- …

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one

I for one hope all parents respond by writing "FUCK OFF YOU GESTAPO BASTERDS!" In large colourful letters.

They wont of course, this is how people are coerced into behaving as the government requires them too.

Sadly, Cameron is a religious nut as well so no matter who wins we get power crazed god botherers in.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Then the Emperor has already won"

When people are afraid to object to a questionnaire about their own children, you know the Government have succeeded in implementing their goal, to rule by fear.

It's a sad day.

Also by not suggesting the ability to opt out, aren't they breaking the Data Protection Act?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse than that.

A few weeks ago, I asked my daughter what she learned last week, she couldn't think of anything, and so later when I bumped into a teacher of hers, I asked "Do they do times tables."

"No he said, we don't have time for that."

I therefore wondered what they actually are learning at school. Lo and behold, she announced, after querying every day for a week, on what she'd learned she said "I've learned the policy on what to do to counter bullying."

So I came to work, and spoke to my boss about it and he said, "Yes, I know, that's why all our kids are now in private school." My son can do his 17 times table if you asked him, and he's just 6. "My wife asked the headmistress what the f*ck they were teaching the kids, and she said, we're teaching them methods of learning."

Unfortunately my wife thinks that because the government says the school is great, (using evidence collected by the labour party, defined by the labour party, and marked by the labour partyaccording to labour partydefined measures and reported according to kill, kill, kill them all, labour party defined criteria,) then our kids are going to be ok. Not surprisingly I'm trying to earn a million quid quick, because I disagree with the wife.

F*cking fantastic. Roll on Michael Gove, the IGSE, the IB.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

One more question

Have you got a tattoo?

If yes, would you be prepared to take part in a pilot scheme to assist your needs by having a fucking barcode tattoo'd onto your wrist/back of neck*

*you're choice.

[Paul_Murphy]

I can see where this is coming from.

Who can see where it's going?

It seems to be the governments position that people are guilty by default, they just need to find out what for.. this seems to be fitting into that ethos quite neatly.

By the time the last survivor of the second world war dies will we be living in Hitlers Britain?

>They further added that the data would only be provided in anonymised form to third parties

Who/what are these third parties I wonder? government departments? social services? it's just one aspect of this distasteful activity which is ringing alarm bells.

Still - it's can't get worse can it?

[Winkypop]

Coming soon to a train seat near you

Kiddie-Gate 1.0, all the mini-munchkin data you can handle.

[Danny 14]

I love questionnaires

They usually get tick boxes for everything in the A column. I love CICO

[Cynical Observer]

Enough's enough - and we'll stop when we get there!

"She also explained that as part of Lincolnshire’s softly-softly consensual approach to data gathering, this initial communication will be followed up with a reminder and then a third letter and a potential home visit from the School Nursing team."

And if you refuse entry to the School Nursing team? Something that presumably you are allowed to do?

Jack boots at Dawn there after?

[jon 72]

How about

How about having MPs fill out a similiar questionaire..

1> have you lied recently

2> are you exploiting loop-holes for personal financial gain

3>does your wife know about Paris?

[Craig 12]

Won't someone think of the children!

I would refuse to return this, simple as that. It's very intrusive.

[Jim Carter]

Not Anon

I don't have kids, but if I did, I would refuse to complete this on principle, even if opt-out were not available. Not a happy chappy with this at all.

[Simon.W]

The beginnings of the Pre-Crime database?

Any which way they can this stazi government tries to index us all - the amount of data they're collecting for this exercise is staggering.

<quote>On reflection I agree that this should have been clearer in the letter accompanying the questionnaire...</quote>

Lying bastards, they know exactly what they're attempting to do. Questionnaires like this, in local government, go through so many levels to make sure it complies with every bit of PC legislation the omission can only be deliberate.

And again the view that this government holds, that all parents are perverts and kiddyfiddlers, comes through loud and clear <quote>and even to own up to whether or not their child is upset when they (the parent) returns to a room</quote> And I bet there is no field for the context to be entered.

This is truly scary

[PJI]

Who or what are these ghastly people?

Have they not got children, husbands/wives/partners, private lives?

Is this what 30 years of the denigration of "education" in arts, history, languages etc. have done, as opposed to "training for jobs"?

These people are terrifying, whatever the strict letter of the law may seem to allow. I suggest enforcing on them a strict education regime to cover philosophy, English literature covering books such as Brave New World, 1985 (Anthony Burgess), Animal Farm and 1984, as well as the standard classics, Latin, including the great writings in that language, history since Roman times if not earlier right up to infinite detail of 20th century dictatorial methodology and geography (to give a sense of scale regarding their places in the world), as well as statistics to teach them the use, misuse, fallibility and folly of much of that field. Oh, and no access to computers of any sort. Make them think for themselves. Perhaps the MPs and councillors, our so-called representatives should go through the same, together with a reminder that their job is representation, not mastery, exploitation and control.

These are the same, horrible people who start to describe Britsh people as "African British", "Indian British"....,, "at risk whatevers", the ill and the needy as "clients" or "customers" with a mania for classification and control at all levels regardless of the dangers, in the bold assumption that their views are right and should be acted upon at all costs.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Perhaps whats

needed is a few more questions added to the questionaire for the children to answer

1. Will you tell on your parents if they are doing something bad.

2. Who would you tell?

a. social services

b. teacher

c. grandparent.

d. Ministry of love telephone hotline(free sweets for every conviction)

(tick one)

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

To what purpose?

Forgive me for perhaps missing it in the article, but to what end do they want this information?

And who are they flogging this data to?

[irish donkey]

Nature Verus Nurture

This will become part of the Governments study of Nature Versus Nurture.

What is Nature Versus Nurture?

Simple question: Are children born with a predisposition to become little fuckers/murderers/muggers/terrorists.

Or

Are little angels turned into little fuckers/murderers/muggers/terrorists by poor parenting?

Also: Is this child likely to ever have a job when it grows up. If your parents don't have a job then statistically you are less likely to have a job when you grow up.

So couple this information with a DNA Database then the Government will effectively be able to predict how much tax to charge those working parents to support the great unwashed and their desire for free broadband and SkyTV.

NuLabour - Rewarding failure since 1997 - Using science and research to justify the unjustifiable.

[/dev/me]

So basically...

...there is expected growth in the job market for DBA's? ;-)

Would it not be fun, in a geekish way, to learn more about the technical side of databases.gov?

What choice of platform, what choice of DB, how the Sun-Oracle situation affects the decision making process. What DB's link with which other DB's? How's access rights arranged?

I mean, the data collection frenzy of governments is ridiculous, and reminds me of how I in the late 90's started putting the little index number stickers on my heaps of VCR cassettes and noting their contents in corresponding MS access entries. I thought it was a good idea then, but quickly made a mess out of it and after a while I'd find to my great disappointment that #34 'A fish called Wanda' was actually a football match. You can laugh now, but I bet I'm not the only one who started building something before thinking through what it was supposed to become.

Databases need maintenance, updates and a good methodological plan needs to lie at it's foundation. It's never a matter of 'oh look, data!' put it in a database and we'll see later what we can do with it.

.

More on a serious note. Storing data in databases is useless unless you plan to do something with it. What you want to do in such a database, is look for patterns, correlations, relationships. You will want to perform analysis. Otherwise it'll just take a byte (<+look! A joke!) out of your storage and resources.

So what is it they actually plan to *do* with these databases?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well

I'd add an extra tick column E titled "None of your fucking business" and tick it for every answer.

[EddieD]

Why the surprise?

The tenor of the article would suggest that you were surprised by the dubious legality and intimidatory manner of this questionnaire.

We have got the most intrusive government in history, which has been presented with the tools to carry out these intrusions and they possess fewer morals than a mafia don.

Fortunately, their time is strictly limited, so we're seeing the last mad scramble to patternise the most vulnerable - hopefully, these violations will die away

[James 5]

Moody Blues - In the Beginning (1969)

From 1969 !

[First Man:] I think, I think I am, therefore I am, I think.

[Establishment:] Of course you are my bright little star,

I've miles

And miles

Of files

Pretty files of your forefather's fruit

and now to suit our

great computer,

You're magnetic ink.

[First Man:] I'm more than that, I know I am, at least, I think I must be.

[Inner Man:] There you go man, keep as cool as you can.

Face piles

And piles

Of trials

With smiles.

It riles them to believe

that you perceive

the web they weave

And keep on thinking free.

[Anonymous Coward]

@It's worse than that.

Mine go to the local junior school and to their credit they do teach kids times tables and they have weekly spelling tests plus they have project work to do every week. I must admit that I feel like I was being pounded with the 3 Rs more when I was 6 years old, than my kids do now. I remember sitting in class for what seemed like hours reciting the times tables in chorus with all the other kids. I also remember that some kids were better at some things, so they got rewarded, the rest of us didn't, so we tried harder. Nowadays they don't leave any kid behind, everyone gets a prize, so kids get lazy, they don't try so hard now it seems.

I try hard to ensure my kids also learn stuff at home, I don't bore them to death, just try to expand on what they are asked to learn at school. Kids have an uncanny nack, from an early age, of knowing when you're trying to teach them things! You have to really be creative if you want to teach them the boring, yet essential, stuff!

Have a dig about on eBay for the old Win98, late 90s educational software, way better for the 3Rs than today's educational software. Get the software and run it in an old WIN98 Virtual Machine on your chosen O/S host. I-Spy game, the Junior Learners stuff, a lot of it is US based, but kids know the difference between a Z(ed) and Z(ee)!

[theblackhand]

Cue mock outrage

If only one child's life is saved, it will be worhwhile...

The reality is that the information will be used to keep tabs on the little ones before being copied to a USB stick and left on a train.

[Chris Pollard]

Laptops on trains

This will be popular data to leave on a train and end up on the Internet for ever more.

[Evil_Trev]

@ Everyone

Can't you understand that the nice Government only wants to help all those poor children ?

By collecting more information the services can target those with the greatest need, those poor innocents who might otherwise grow up to be cynical, bigoted, non-pc, nonconformist trouble making types!

I am shocked at the thought of not giving full and comprehensive answers to all the questions, it should be a crime not to return the questionnaire! We should condemn those who seek to inhibit the ability of the educators and health service professionals in providing the utmost care to our most vulnerable.

We cannot risk our future, and our children's future, on petty concerns over mere privacy !

[John Murgatroyd]

Who ?

They'll sell the data to anyone who wants to pay for it. Probably we'll soon have the best informed paedophiles in the world.

Apart from the fact that parents will be bombarded by mail-drops from every health food firm in the world if they ever feed their kiddie anything other than oats and apples.

The reality is that the VAST majority of parents will do what everyone else does now when presented with government forms: Lie about most things and incorrect about the rest.

Useless facts 1:

Did you know that everyone who [now] claims benefit/s has to fill-in about 90 pages of forms to just get to stage one ?

That's without the local council forms....in which they ALSO want to know about your kids and what they do ?

[blackworx]

@ James 5

Can the poems Graham, it's arse-whupping time!

(PS: Now I have the opening riff from Lovely to See You stuck in my head. Makes a change from that talentless Black-Eyed Fucking Peas pish that's on constant rotation on the office radio right now).

[Myopic Aardvark]

@Evil_Trev

I know you were joking.

You know you were joking.

Most people know you were joking.

But one person will see your comment and assume you're being perfectly serious and that will either lead to a small flame war or increased government regulation because they have no context on what is humour and what isn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not new

My wife and I are having difficulties in trying for a baby, and were recently referred for IVF treatment. Cue a questionnaire landing on the door mat. It states "Please complete the questionnaire to ensure you meet the criteria." One part of the attached form is basic data, i.e. name, address etc (which they *do* already have and which cannot by definition form part of a criteria - "Your name is Fred? No, you can't have children!). The other is a rather comprehensive form about our 'ethnic group'. Hmmm.

Hence my wife has refused to return any of it until she has spoken to the PCT. Only 2 problems with that: They *never* answer the phone, and we only have 14 days in which to return the form, before they assume we "no longer want treatment".

[Anonymous Coward]

@ PJI "Who or what are these ghastly people?"

"I suggest enforcing on them a strict education regime to cover philosophy, English literature covering books such as Brave New World, 1985 (Anthony Burgess), Animal Farm and 1984, as well as the standard classics, Latin, including the great writings in that language, history since Roman times if not earlier right up to infinite detail of 20th century dictatorial methodology and geography (to give a sense of scale regarding their places in the world), as well as statistics to teach them the use, misuse, fallibility and folly of much of that field."

--------------------------

See, I'd love to have been taught all of that in school, instead of.... uhhh well I can't even remember a single useful thing they actually did teach me (tests are the be all and end all of life?). It's a good thing I have smart educated parents, I can say with certainty that they've taught me more than the state is even capable of doing.

No wonder so many kids are messed up these days. Idiot parents who would rather watch X-Factor than talk to their kids AND a completely useless "education" full of pseudo-scientific and pseudo-social brainwash guff taught by morons who they themselves have had their brains through the full rinse cycle by way of Twitter and Facebook.

"social media" just another name for "vast amounts of useless information" and people eat that crap up because it involves their favourite hobby - not thinking

[Gordon is not a Moron]

@Myopic Aardvark : He was joking???!!11!!

You mean Evil_Trev won't be bending over and taking it from our political masters?

I'm shocked.

Shocked and indeed appalled.

Won't somebody think of the children?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heil H.........

....Brown . One can just imagine the scen now, Brown, Mandleson, Milipede etc all dressed in Nazi uniforms .... That would suit them all and they would love it.

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC 14:16

Oh yes, those pesky "ethnic group" questionnaires. I can never decide whether to tick "don't know", "won't say", "none" or "unknown". Or "other" and "humanoid life form".

[Nomen Publicus]

small paranoia

I for one welcome this - those little terrorists could have infiltrated every primary school in the country for all we know.

[MinionZero]

Hmm... these are not health questions...

"whether their child "often lies or cheats"

"whether they steal or bully"

"even to own up to whether or not their child is upset when they (the parent) returns to a room"

These are not health questions, they are psychological profiling signs to watch out for.

What shocks me is that the UK is now at the point where some parents are fearful of loosing their children for failing to fill in a questionnaire!. So because of this fear, they are willing to give up their privacy so they can keep their children!. Incredible. What the hell is this country turning into!

So what's next? ... I know how about government cameras in every home and anyone who refuses, looses their children, because they must have something to hide. Of course if the cameras then also pick up other crimes like government treason for speaking their mind in opposition to the government, then its all good because its helping to reduce the crime figures and so helping to make England such a happy place to live. Right, so after this move, we need a government way to also police what the children eat. So then if parents feed them the wrong things then their children get punished by being pushed to the far end of hospital queues. This will help cull any who fail to follow government advice leading to a better society for all.

... I can't think of anything beyond this move, but I'm sure they will find a way, after all I foolishly once believed 1984 was just a book instead of it being a user guide to the 21st century. :(

[Fred 24]

Not on my shift jack!

Just emailed all my family members: if this crap comes home from school use it to light the fire, or "the dog ate it", etc, etc.

No to this means no now, now in 6 month time, and no in 6 six years!

[Number6]

@AC 11:24

You ought to dump her and then earn your million quid, otherwise she'll get half of it and the lawyers will get 49%.

Go check out home education, although with a wife with blinkers like that (are you sure someone didn't swap her for a carthorse?) you stand no chance.

I wonder how much of the information filled in will end up gracing the child's ContactPoint(spit!) records?

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

........lost for words.......

Holy Shit, I’m glad I don’t live in England Über Alles, I find it unbelievable that one of the centre s of democracy in the world is in fact a fascist Orwellian police state, doing its best to breed a country full of Winston’s. I am particularly shocked to read that filling in the questionnaire is entirely the “choice of the parent", but the implication of the statement that the initial communication will be followed up with a reminder and then a third letter and a potential home visit from the School Nursing team. WTF!!!!!!

This isn’t a questionnaire, its conditioning people to hand over some very private information about their personal lives, and then presumably for it to be sold in anonymised form to third parties, i.e. posted in the mail in unencrypted form. Phrases like data will be "obtained fairly" and that collection be "adequate for purpose" and "not excessive" is just brainwashing propaganda, I can image the “teacher” teaching times tables, the kids saying 2 + 2 is 4, and the teacher replies , “No, 2 + 2 is whatever I say it is”….. This isn’t social services, it’s the thought police.

Propaganda should be a school subject, and books like “1984” on the school curriculum so that children can be thought to recognise that propaganda is and how to ignore it, but them the purpose of this sort of propaganda is not to control people but to get them to control themselves.

I’ll leave the last words to Winston: “But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

[N2]

Tell them to F off

I agree, although its bastards not basterds,

I even had some prat ring me the other day requesting my date of birth as a 'security question' from that computing magazine that gets chucked in the bin without being read, stuff like that I refuse to divulge & promptly ordered that every last nanobyte of data they store on me be removed & their magazine stowed where the sun dosnt shine.

Time is long overdue to stop this senseless data gathering.

[ElFatbob]

@ The first AC commenter - eh?

'Sadly, Cameron is a religious nut as well so no matter who wins we get power crazed god botherers in.'

'is a religious nut as well'..... As well as who? The current lot are as godless a bunch as you can get and so what, that Cameron has admitted to having 'faith'?

He didn't actually say what he had faith in and left it suitably vague so as to appear as someone with morals, whilst being careful to not offend the religious and the non religious potential voters. Nothing more than that.

The continued intrusion by the state into the lives of its' individuals, as highlighted by this and many other articles, is going to continue unabated.

The EU is currently developing standards for collecting and sharing all sorts of data across countries and the Lisbon treaty provides for the forced adoption of ID cards in all member states.

I think we're just the crash test dummies in all this....

[TimLennon]

@AC 11:24

Stop! Stop now before you drown in your own drooling bath of conspiracy-theory induced drool!

"..using evidence collected by the labour party, defined by the labour party, and marked by the labour partyaccording to labour partydefined measures and reported according to kill, kill, kill them all, labour party defined criteria..."

No, collected by ordinary people working in ordinary schools up and down the country, defined by some civil servant somewhere, and graded according to some amazingly dull meaasure worked out at great length over random meetings of civil servants, and then aggregated probably automatically. Unless you imagine that Labour has somehow managed to brainwash every civil servant in the country - including all the teachers - and somehow not tell us.

17 times table? Wow. That'll just be so useful in later life, won't it? Quick get your kids to such a useful school! Any child who can do that much multiplication at 6 must be a complete joy to have around the house!

The survey sounds like a pile of excrement, but your demented ravings are no better.

[The BigYin]

What do these citizens have to hide?

Labour merely want to care for and protect their offspring, They with to ensure that Right-thinking children are brought you to think Right thoughts and act in Right ways and not destabilise this Great Nation with Wrong Thoughts.

Not filling out this form is a clear indication that something is Wrong and these people kept udner watch, or even their children removed For the Greater Good.

Labour will know what you think.

Labour will control how you think.

Obey the machine, citizen.

It is there to set you free.

For the avoidance of doubt: the Tories are no better and the Lib Dems useless. Is open revolt the only option left?

[sheila]

What choice of platform...

This lot seem to be doing very well http://www.corelogic.co.uk/?Section=34&Track=/34/

N Lincs are using this http://www.visionwareplc.com/page.cfm?PageID=133&NewsID=152

Not techie *ducks* so can't comment...except to say I don't care how they store the info they have no right to it in the first place.

Up in not so bonny Scotland we have a pathfinder project with similar intrusions only they start when you are still in the womb.

http://www.forhighlandschildren.org/htm/girfec/gir-publications/phnr-separate-forms-nov08/phnr-v4-contents.pdf

Further info here:

http://www.home-education.biz/Blogs/21/59/id-cards-for-babies-the-rest-will-follow/

We have the added "benefit" of "prize-winning" ecare.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/PublicServiceReform/efficientgovernment/DataStandardsAndeCare

http://www.visionwareplc.com/page.cfm?pageid=359

http://www.corelogic.co.uk/?Section=48&Track=/34/48/

In fact they have put so much energy into selling what Scotland are doing, I have my suspicions:

http://forum.no2id.net/viewtopic.php?p=111079&sid=c668a5a618f97ed2d4be64546931fb5b

[Anonymous Coward]

Emigrate

Emigrate to a country whose government doesn't (at the moment at least) seem to want every last quantum of information about you on a government run database, force ID cards on you or any of the myriad of petty irritations the UK government is trying to force on people in England and Wales.

Yes come to Scotland - we need immigrants, and there is plenty of space up here.

[Ciaran McHale]

Worse things are being proposed

There are even worse things being proposed. Currently, it is legal to educate your child at home. But now the government is considering changing the law so that if you do so then a local authority official will have the right to: (1) invade your home several times per year as a matter of routine (no search warrant or suspicion of wrongdoing required), and (2) interview your child privately, that is, without a parent being present.

The power to do (1) and (2) is something that not even the police have. If it were proposed that such powers were granted over the entire population then there would be a massive backlash from the public. However, the government is seeking to bring in such powers to cover just

home-ed families, which represent only about 1% of the population. If the government is successful in bringing in these laws against home-ed families then I suspect that the scope of the laws will be increased gradually in succeeding years to cover more and more of the population.

If you want more details then check out the links I have in the "Home education" section on

the main page of my website (www.CiaranMcHale.com).

[John Munyard]

Educationalists

The reason for the questionnaire is to allow the school to identify the kids who are not fucked up so that they can target extra time and attention to turning them into ill-educated text messaging morons like all the chavvy kids.

Easy innit.

[Ken Hagan]

If I did this, I'd be arrested

So there I am. I find a person who is probably unaware of their legal rights in the matter and make a series of requests that I have no right to make, but do so in a context where it is understood by most normal people that a failure to comply would probably result in some "inconvenience" further down the line. Then I sell on whatever I get. Profit!

How is this different from sending some thug round to collect the protection money?

Oh, I remember now. The state, and anyone it chooses to delegate power to, are above the law. It really is about time we took the Supremacy of Parliament, nailed it to the floor, and stuck a great big stake through its heart with a signpost attached saying "No you fucking well aren't! This is *our* country and *you* are public servants.".

[Sean Timarco Baggaley]

Amazing.

All this vitriolic ranting. And yet...

New Labour have been elected no less than THREE TIMES by the very population that claims to hate it so. (And the second two times were *after* the declaration of a UN-sanctioned invasion AND an illegal, immoral war—effectively forcing our military organisations to fight on multiple fronts while under-equipped.)

The Tories are no better, having created much of the mess New Labour have failed to clean up. (PFI and PPP are Tory inventions, as were the series of botched privatisations, like the railways.)

It's time for reform. End of.

If either Labour or the Conservatives are elected next year, this country will have only itself to blame for the results. (The Labour and Conservative parties are basically the same package, but with different branding.)

At the very least, we need to make it illegal for a party to remain in power for more than two consecutive terms. Both the Tories and New Labour have demonstrated that this is a certain path to failure.

(My vote is LibDem. They're not perfect, but they're still half-Liberal, which is the very antithesis of everything New Labour and the Tories stand for.)

[Steve Roper]

And this sort of thing...

...is why I've refused to have children. If I did, I wouldn't not be allowed to discipline them in any way but would still be accountable for their wrongdoing, and I would have to live with the fear that they could be taken away from me either by a social work department who felt I was not raising them the "right way", or by some feminist-fuelled divorce court after my putative wife had been convinced by all the propaganda that I, being male, must have molested the children at some point.

Fuck this world and everyone in it. I'll gladly die childless, and no progeny of mine will be slaves to the world police state.

[/dev/me]

@Sheila

Thank you, that was a quite interesting, if disturbing, read.

I wont respond in much detail, but one thing. Are you supposed to feel doubleplus safe knowing your child is monitored with a "(...) strategic solution to in its entirety, spanning full ICS compliancy, eCAF, ContactPoint, ESCR, Financial Management and Control, Statutory Reporting, Multi-agency working, Integration and Mobile working. All from one integrated eGIF compliant solution."

Lest we forget, these are children we're talking about. Children! All of them in the UK, okay granted. But children nonetheless.

[ExpertSkeptic]

But who is the data subject?

The data on you is not stored against your name. It is stored against your children's names, otherwise you would be able to access it. That is why this system has been set up! It is the file on "Little Abigail" which says in SW-speak, after being redacted by access-to-records munchkins: "There are concerns that little Abigail Doe, John Doe's daughter, is at risk of receiving inappropriate interaction with his daughter who has not yet disclosed. John Doe is also believed to be linked to international terrorism and satanic ritual abuse networks, and is suspected of being a serial rapist and drug-dealer, even though he was found not guilty at all trials. His credit card details were stolen and sold to NotVeryDodgyVideos.com, which is believed also hosted on the same system that runs a portal to XXXXExtremePort.com", although we are told that no transactions were recorded. Also John Doe bought Abigail a lollipop and crisps and lets her have use her account on Facebook without parental supervision. Clearly there is no smoke without fire but we can't prove anything. I am only a social worker so I have had to pay lots of IT experts to explain all this to me. All this must be true because ████████ told me."

John Doe has no right of access to Abigail Doe's records (except by a successful application and execution of a court order), so the first he hears about the records is when he fails an ISA vetting procedure because the LA records have been ported to the ISA system.

[I J Ellis]

Why?

I'm sorry, I've no experience of modern education practices and procedures so please forgive my naivete but: why on earth do parents need to fill out ANY such questionnaires in order to send their offspring to any school? And what educational entity/department could have any legitimate need for said info? And who the hell wants this info in the first place? And who EXACTLY are the mysterious 'School Nursing Team' & who do they report to?

And, and, and... Sad to say, I'm beginning to seriously despise this country & its most un-civil service (RIP our illustrious forefathers).

[Anonymous Coward]

Home educators first, then the rest of you

First, to Sean Timarco Baggaley's comment that the government was elected three times, remember that in the last election, only 22% of the electorate voted for them (and of course the rest did even worse) - I think that's the smallest share of the electorate in the records for over a century, possibly ever in our parliamentary system.

Ciaran McHale is absolutely right about home education. Legislation to control them is the thin end of the wedge and I expect to see home inspections for all pre-school children before long, especially if they don't go to nursery. If you think I'm going over the top, look at what is planned for "safety inspections" with snoopers entering your homes: http://bit.ly/1pRgTZ

A growing number of smart people educate their children "otherwise than at school" ; home education sometimes conjures-up a picture of a child locked away with wierdos - but in fact, home-ed children usually have better social skills because they mix with a range of ages, not just a narrow year group.

Unfortunately, the government have decided that such dangerous, independent-minded thought must be regulated, inspected and licensed. You might argue that this is appropriate, but most of us doing this are trying to escape the declining standards, worthless tests and police-state tactics described here and by other posters. Why would we want some CRB-checked (like the Plymouth nursery toddler rapist) dimwit telling us how to educate our child?

After an initial attempt by the government in the so-called "Badman Report" to smear home educators as child abusers, a close inspection by mathematically-minded HE parents showed that the statistics were complete crap - if anything the incidence of child abuse among these families is lower than the average for the general population. However, the government has decided to go ahead with legislation because these children are "vulnerable" - as if those in school are not.

There's plenty of research to show that home educated children do better than average.

They learn to socialise without the usual school pressures and of the 40-50 HE kids I've met, I don't recall seeing any of the needy, spoiled or intimidating brats that seem to be increasingly common generally.

The outcome I've seen from others that take this approach is a breed of sociable young adults that go on to do degrees (often in difficult subjects like maths and science or engineeing), start businesses etc., and make a useful contribution to society.

But the government want to stop all that to ensure uniform mediocrity.

I recommend home education; it works well for us, but you may have to be prepared to stand up for yourself against petty state bureaucrats, although I suspect most Register readers are smart enough to handle them.

If you think this is for you, or even if you'd like to reserve the right to do this or support freedom for home educators, please consider supporting one or both of these petitions to parliament:

http://bit.ly/H0pzy - Freedom for Family Education

http://bit.ly/1nWSna - Declaration to Parliament - Notice of Refusal to Co-operate

[sheila]

@Anonymous Coward - Home educators first, then the rest of you

Spot on! I know it has become a bit of a cliche but Pastor Martin Niemöller's poem sums up what is happening with the database state...

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Substitute, junkies, gypsy-travellers, Muslims, home-educators, carers, vulnerable adults, domestic extremists, all children ( tomorrow's adults) or wtf you like...

Home ed forums has some lively discussions on the surveillance issues - and of course info on life without school.........

http://www.home-education.biz/

[Northumbrian]

Thinking soberly

First reaction: shout aloud about snoopers, control-freaks, Big Brother etc. Second thought: this is much too serious for me to allow myself the luxury of more satire or righteous indignation.

So, firstly is this really New Labour at work? And, as a concomitant question, does that mean that the Tories (or the Lib Dems, bless their little cotton socks) would get rid of this pernicious stuff? My belief is that the climate created by New Labour - especially in their wholesale eradication of civil liberties - has made this sort of thing possible, even made it seem desirable. I do NOT think that they have actually done this. This particular horror is partly a result of the database technology.

There's a certain type of person who looks at a mass database (say, for example the DVLC) and says, "Could we use one of those to keep details of every child in the country?" On being assured that it could, this person says, "Names, addresses, dates of birth, legal guardians?" "Oh yes," says our DB expert, "Anything you want." "School records?" "No problem, just link in it through .."

But our control freak has already stopped listening, and has started to add in, "Health records, home environment, if the parents smoke, diet, possible mental health problems, behavioural disorders." He or she has a vision of all of this making huge numbers of charts showing the link between being smacked at home and performance in maths tests, or drinking cocktails of toxic additives and truanting. And, as any academic will tell you, your data may not tell you what you want to hear, it may not even tell you anything remotely useful, but someone, somewhere will find a use for that data.

A week ago I would have thought that I was indulging in alarmism or theatricality, but the details about that questionnaire are truly frightening - all of the things I mentioned are in that or in the other massive childsnoop database.

And now the police and the bureaucrats have been shown what they can do, and discovered that this government will not only let them do it, but encourage them, I do think that any government is going to stop them. I do not believe that any government is going to TRY to stop them. And I also think that the police will demand, and get, full access to this database "to protect the children", even when that "protection" means using all the databases to get any dirt they can on anyone for any reason. Your children's schools have joined the list of those who are duty-bound to spy on you.

And, yes, I do mean that seriously.

[Steve Bush]

Cowardly Shiites

We brits are a cowardly bunch of shiites and deserve to go under.