Information Sharing Duty – Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act introduced an information sharing duty to
provide clarity for practitioners on what and when they should share information for the
purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. Local safeguarding
arrangements, practices and procedures, alongside pre-existing statutory responsibilities,
then determine how this information should be shared, and with whom. As with all
processing of personal data, data protection law determines how to do so appropriately.

This guidance explains what organisations and practitioners must do to comply with the
information sharing duty under section 16LA (s16LA) of the Children Act 2004, and what
they should do to ensure consistent and effective information sharing to safeguard children
and promote their welfare.

This guidance applies to organisations in England, including GPs.

The information sharing duty applies to information that may help another relevant person
exercise their functions, including assess risk, make a decision, provide support or take
action to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child.

Where the information sharing duty applies, organisations must share information with
another organisation, or the requestor, if it is considered that sharing may help the
recipient’s relevant functions, including assess need, make a decision, provide support or
take action to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child, including when a child
potentially poses a risk to others.

The information sharing duty does not apply in extremely limited circumstances where a
practitioner, acting on behalf of their organisation, determine through professional
judgement that sharing information would be more detrimental to the child than not sharing – refer to pages 9-11 ‘Limitation: detriment to the child’ for more information.

Common Law Duty of Confidentiality

Previously, practitioners had to judge whether disclosure of confidential information
(or ‘confidential patient information’) was legally required, justified in the overriding
public interest or required consent. The information sharing duty creates a legal
requirement to share information relevant to safeguarding and promoting the welfare
of a child, reducing uncertainty and negating the need to determine overriding public
interest or seek consent.

Confidential information can be shared without consent for the purposes of
safeguarding and promoting welfare, provided the criteria in s16LA – as explained in
this guidance – and data protection requirements are met. This applies to information
about the child, alongside information about any other individual connected to a child,
provided it is relevant to the child’s safety and welfare.