While some councils continue to struggle to establish a fit-for-purpose electronic social care record (ESCR), those that hit the latest deadline are calling for more control over the Integrated Children’s System (ICS) programme.

Ownership of ICS needs to be passed from central government to local authorities for the system to fulfil its objectives and protect children from harm, according to council delegates at a conference hosted by ICS supplier Liquidlogic earlier this month.

“It is time for local authorities to take ownership of the policy agenda and define what the end product will look like,” said Islington Council’s ICS project manager for children’s services, Tim Parkin.

“The difficulties now are not with the system but how it is managed at a local level.”

Jo Fox, a consultant who advises local authorities on the Every Child Matters agenda, said the main issue is that social workers are unused to the new electronic way of working and feel the system is slowing them down.

Rather than using the software as the helpful tool it was first intended to be, social workers consider filling in each record to be an administrative burden, she said. Part of the problem is that practitioners feel constrained by technology.

“At the moment the systems are too prescriptive and many social workers feel under pressure to tick every box,” said Fox.

“Imagine what this will feel like for the less vulnerable children.”

An anonymous delegate from Dorchester Council, said the emphasis on the project is wrong.

“We do not have a pen and paper department so why is this being managed by IT? Practitioners and processes should come first,” she said.

Islington’s Parkin said the problem is “a challenge for all of us to bring technology and people together.”

He advised creating multi-disciplinary teams of practitioners and IT professionals to ensure procedures are stable.

“We need to get to the point where every child has a well structured and well written plan, informed by a good quality assessment,” said Parkin.

London Borough of Hillingdon’s ICS project manager, Chris Chaplin, said the council had designed its ESCR system with ease of use in mind.

“It had to be something staff enjoyed using, that they were comfortable with and that met all their needs,” he said.

But even though the implementation of the ICS system had been a success, Chaplin said there were still vital aspects missing.

“Social workers like diagrams when doing assessments and there are no in-built drawing facilities,” he said.