Government publishes new statutory guidance on information sharing

The Department for Education has published new statutory guidance on information sharing to safeguard children and young people, ahead of a new legal duty coming into force on 30 September 2026.

Introduced through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, the new Information Sharing Duty is intended to provide greater clarity and confidence about when information should be shared between organisations to safeguard children and promote their welfare. The guidance applies across a wide range of organisations including local authorities, health, police, education and early years, probation, youth justice and organisations providing relevant services on their behalf.

_{From permission to a duty to share}

One of the most significant aspects of the guidance is its clarity about when information must be shared. Where an organisation holds information relevant to safeguarding or promoting a child’s welfare, and considers that sharing the information may help another relevant organisation assess need, make a decision, provide support or take action, the information must be shared. The exception is where professional judgement determines that sharing would be more detrimental to the child than not sharing. The guidance makes clear that this is expected to apply only in very limited circumstances.

_{Information sharing is not just about child protection}

Importantly, the new duty is not limited to situations where a child is at risk of significant harm. The guidance explicitly states that there is no requirement for a particular statutory threshold to have been reached before relevant information can be shared. Safeguarding and promoting welfare encompasses early help, prevention, emerging and unmet need, as well as protecting children from harm. This is particularly important as local areas implement Families First and integrated Family Help. Effective whole-family assessment depends on practitioners being able to bring together different pieces of information to understand the child’s daily life, family circumstances, strengths, needs and risks. The guidance specifically identifies information sharing as supporting effective collective decision-making within Family Help, integrated front doors and Multi Agency Child Protection Teams (MACPTs).

_{Consent, transparency and professional judgement}

The guidance also seeks to address some common barriers to information sharing. Consent is not required to share information under the new duty where its criteria are met. Data protection legislation also does not prevent appropriate safeguarding information sharing; instead, it provides the framework for sharing information lawfully, proportionately and securely. At the same time, relationship-based practice remains important. Practitioners should be open and transparent with children and families about information sharing wherever it is safe and practicable to do so.

Professional judgement therefore remains central. Practitioners need to consider the relevance of information, how sharing it may help another organisation safeguard or promote the welfare of the child, proportionality and whether there is any risk that sharing would cause greater detriment to the child.

_{What should local partnerships be doing?}

The guidance has practical implications for leaders as well as frontline practitioners. Multi-agency safeguarding partnerships are expected to revisit their existing data-sharing agreements and ensure that arrangements reflect the new duty. The Department for Education has published new strategic and operational data-sharing agreement templates to support this work. Local arrangements should enable information to flow across the whole safeguarding and children’s social care system – from early help and Family Help through to child protection and support for children in care.

For the workforce, the challenge is to turn the legal framework into confident everyday practice. Practitioners across agencies need to understand what information is relevant, when it should be shared, how to share proportionately and securely, how to communicate with children and families and how to record the rationale for their decisions.