Liberal Democrats fear that confidential details of every child in Essex to be held on a council database, will not be secure enough in the light of the government’s recent loss of 25m pieces of personal information. Councillors at Essex County Council today (4 December) have now agreed to undertake regular reviews of the system.

The debate was led by Cllr Anne Turrell, Lib Dem spokesman for children, who commented: “I am pleased that all councillors have understood our anxieties about security breaches, although both the Conservative and Labour groups seem happy to support the project. However, the Essex taxpayer is now committed to the cost of setting up and maintaining this system to the tune of tens of millions of pounds, plus the additional burden of paying for regular and extensive reviews to check that confidential information is not being misused.

“We have serious concerns about the scale of this enormous database and it is difficult not to image that a least a few of the people with access to it might have some malign intention. It will take up valuable resources that should be spent on targeted support for vulnerable children and it will expose every child to the possibility of deliberate or negligent misuse of personal information. That is except for the children of MPs and the rich and famous who are explicitly excluded.”

A Liberal Democrats motion pointing out potential security risks was voted through at a meeting of the full council at county hall today (4 December).

“The cabinet member responsible for schools, children and families agreed to try to ensure that people with access to the database were appropriate and secure, within the resources available. For all our children’s sake, let us hope that is enough”, Cllr Turrell added.