Hampshire County Council selects Capita for school data-sharing system
System aimed at enabling authorised staff to get a better picture of a pupil's circumstances
Hampshire County Council has selected IT services company Capita's One management information system and SIMS Learning Gateway in a bid to making sharing between schools and children's services within the authority easier.
The systems will integrate with several third-party components to give practitioners a better view of a child's overall circumstances. The council hopes that this will enable its staff to have better information available in an easy way so that they can intervene when necessary and improve outcomes for vulnerable children and families.
John Coughlan, director of children's services at Hampshire County Council, said that the choice of the system had to meet the objectives of the council's Children and Young People's Plan.
"[It had to] ensure Hampshire could continue to deliver first-class children's services in the future, while providing our practitioners with the information they need to make a difference to the lives of children and young people," he said.
Authorised staff will be able to log-on and see caseload details and relevant information on children and young people from other systems. Capita suggested that, for example, a social worker would be able to access pupil attendance or attainment data alongside referral and assessment records, to make more informed judgements.
The Capita solution was selected following a two-year tender process. As part of the contract, Capita said it will be supporting 536 schools in the area with their use of the SIMS management information system. It said that the majority of schools in the area use SIMS to record pupil data.
"There's lots of data out there, but we're not yet clever enough at making the connections in that data that will provide intelligence to improve service delivery," he said.