The issue for the way the National eCAF system is now specified in the most recent Requirements Catalogue is that it cannot work sensibly without ContactPoint.
Because practitioners will only be able to search the National eCAF system for children they are already involved with, they will be unable to see if a child they wish to start a new CAF on already has an open episode unless they can access ContactPoint as well.
Even if ContactPoint was available, practitioners would then have to search two systems before starting an eCAF and this is bound to lead to multiple episodes for the same child as well as fragmented records that no one individual has control over, this risks running the national eCAF system in contravention of the data protection act.
Without Contactpoint being available it just cannot work unless they change the National eCAF specification.
It's another reason why more localities are opting for a local eCAF system that can be configured to meet local needs and is available now.