The Education Case Management System is operated by local government software provider System C.

Louise Platts, practice manager, children's services at Salford City Council, said: ‘For staff, this will make a real difference to the way they work every day. Having information in one place reduces duplication, cuts down the time spent checking different systems, and gives staff greater confidence that they are working from the most accurate and up-to-date picture. It means less time navigating processes and more time focusing on the children, young people and families who need our support.'

The single data record for over 67,000 children gives practitioners and professionals a more joined-up view of a child's journey from birth through to adulthood, replacing a process that relied on manually matching records held in different platforms.

Amrik Johal, managing director, social care & education at System C, said: ‘Fragmented data across social care, education and early years is one of the biggest challenges councils raise with us, and this go-live shows what's achievable when those services are brought onto a single platform. Bringing four service areas together like this and moving to a fully hosted Azure-based platform is a genuinely complex undertaking, and a credit to Salford's team as much as ours. It now means Salford's team doesn't need to manage the infrastructure and servers themselves, freeing up time to focus on their frontline work.'