'Every Child Matters' promotes the need to work together in a child-centred approach, which involves sharing information and reducing the duplication of assessments. The Children Act 2004 includes the duty to co-operate between organisations (section 10) and the duty to create and maintain an index of basic information on all children in the authority (section 12).
The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) will provide a national, common process for early assessment to identify more accurately the additional needs of children and young people. This should help to reduce the number of children giving the same information repeatedly. It should also create a more consistent approach to assessment.
The CAF was published in March 2005, with authorities working on this from April 2005.
