“Effective information sharing is essential to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. Without it, practitioners cannot build a full understanding of a child’s circumstances, identify need or concerns before they escalate, or decide what action is needed to keep them safe or promote their welfare, including where they may pose a risk to other children. Information sharing also helps organisations to holistically assess if a child poses a risk to other children." (Information Sharing Duty - Statutory guidance for safeguarding organisations and their practitioners)
Setting the scene
Sharing information appropriately and securely is essential to safeguarding children and promoting their welfare. The Information Sharing Duty Statutory Guidance explains how organisations and practitioners should approach information sharing and clarifies when information should be shared to support children, young people and families. The guidance recognises that information held by one practitioner or organisation may be a crucial part of understanding a child's circumstances, identifying emerging needs, assessing risk, or responding to safeguarding concerns.
The guidance has been issued following the introduction of the Information Sharing Duty under section 16LA of the Children Act 2004. It provides a consistent framework to help practitioners understand their responsibilities and supports a more confident and effective multi-agency approach to safeguarding and promoting children's welfare.
Importantly, the guidance reinforces that information sharing is not only about responding to situations where a child is at immediate risk of harm. Sharing relevant information can also help professionals identify needs earlier, provide timely help and support, and improve outcomes for children and families.
What is its relevance to me?
Whether you work in education, health, social care, policing, early years, youth justice, or another safeguarding role, information sharing is a key part of your professional responsibilities. Effective safeguarding relies on practitioners being able to build a complete picture of a child's life and experiences, rather than relying solely on the information held within their own service or organisation.
The guidance provides greater clarity about:
- when information should be shared
- what information may be relevant
- how data protection legislation supports safeguarding practice
- the difference between transparency and consent
- how to ensure information sharing is lawful, necessary and proportionate; and
- how organisations can work together more effectively to support children and families
The Information Sharing Duty is intended to reduce uncertainty and help practitioners make informed decisions. Rather than asking whether information can be shared, practitioners are encouraged to consider whether information is relevant to safeguarding or promoting a child's welfare and whether sharing it may help another organisation assess need, understand risk, make decisions, provide support or take appropriate action.
Rather than Information Sharing Duty Statutory Guidance being another guidance document sitting on an 'office shelf', the aim of this Tool Box is to help you use the guidance when you’re making decisions every day.
The objective of this Tool Box is also to help leaders and managers to use the guidance when they’re developing the safety net that supports you to do your job, as well as you can. To refer to it when they’re developing policies, processes and practice guidelines, to make sure that safe information sharing is a golden thread running through all our work.
Specifically, how does the guidance aim to assist practitioners to keep children and young people safer?
At its core is the belief that having safe access to all the right information enables practitioners to:
- identify, assess and respond effectively to safeguarding concerns
- join up the pieces of a jigsaw, knowing that the final piece might make all the difference to a child’s safety and wellbeing
- support families to have the right conversation, with the right person, at the right time, by accessing services that will help, as soon as they’re needed
- make informed decisions about support, intervention and safeguarding action
- work together more effectively with colleagues, across all partner agencies
- understand what we all mean when we talk about sharing information safely. Speaking the same language as our partners (across adult and children’s services) will make all the difference to the quality and adequacy of the information we share
Ultimately, the guidance seeks to remove barriers and misconceptions that can prevent appropriate information sharing. By providing greater clarity about responsibilities, legal frameworks and professional decision-making, it supports practitioners to share information confidently and effectively whenever doing so may help safeguard a child or promote their welfare.
What more can I learn, and how will that help me to share information safely?
30 Minute learning activity
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) provides practical guidance to help practitioners understand how data protection legislation supports safe and lawful information sharing. The ICO's resources can help practitioners make informed decisions about sharing information to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, alongside the requirements set out in the statutory Information Sharing Duty Guidance.
It provides a A 10 Step Guide to Sharing Information to Safeguard Children, this includes some case examples and working through a best practice approach to decision making.