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Information sharing and consent

Frequently asked questions and resources

When I have a concern, can I share information where I do not have consent from the family or young person to do so?

Yes you can. However, your decision must take into account what information needs to be shared, the most appropriate lawful basis for you to share that information, and whether you should inform the family or not.

Remember you do not need consent to share information, but you do need a lawful basis, and the amount of information shared needs to be proportionate, necessary, and justified. 

When sharing information, you must inform the family of what information you are sharing and with whom. The exception to this will be when informing them would place an individual at risk. 

When can I request involvement of Childrens Social Care without consent or agreement to engage?

Consent to engage with an assessment or service can only be overridden when it is deemed to meet the threshold of Section 47 (Child Protection) of The Children Act (1989). If requesting an assessment from a Qualified Social Worker, or if a child is on a Child in Need Plan (under Section 17) the family must still agree to receive that service.

How do I seek information from practitioners in other services and share information with them?

Where there are safeguarding or wellbeing concerns, practitioners should be proactive and should seek out relevant information from other practitioners, agencies or organisations, to build an accurate picture of a child and family’s life, as well as share information with them for the purpose of protecting a child from harm.

Effective information seeking enables pieces of information to be shared, gathered, and triangulated across agencies or organisations working with a child and family.

When sharing information, all agencies must be clear with each other about the information being shared and the purpose of sharing. Agencies must be explicit with each other about expectations and actions that result from the information sharing.

Information sharing, and actions from it, must be recorded on your own agency or organisation’s recording system.

Can I share information with another agency if I feel it would benefit the family but there are no safeguarding concerns?

In some circumstances, it may be possible to consider and refer the family to a range of early help support they could access in the local area to address evolving concerns, before there is an impact on the child’s overall safety.

However, where a referral to these services is not necessary to protect a child from harm, you should seek the family’s permission to request the involvement of another service before doing so.
 
The Information Commissioners Office website states that sharing information to safeguard children includes:

  • preventing harm
  • promoting the welfare of a child
  • identifying risk in order to prevent harm - especially helpful where the risk may not be obvious to a single person or organisation

Information can be shared to address evolving concerns, to promote the welfare of the child and thereby aiming to prevent harm.

When is it not appropriate to inform a family that I intend to share information?

You should not inform the child or their parent or carer about your decision to share information about them, if:

  • doing so could put a child or others at further risk of harm
  • it could compromise effective safeguarding arrangements, including police investigations

How much information can I share?

The sharing of personal information must be necessary, fair, and proportionate. Only share the personal information that is adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary to protect a child from harm.

Does there need to be an information sharing agreement in place before I can share information?

Where sharing is ad-hoc, there is no need for an information sharing agreement to be in place, but the sharing must be necessary, proportionate, and justifiable.

The decision to share must also be recorded and all decisions to share or not share information should always be recorded with the rationale of what was/was not shared with who, how, when, and the lawful basis for sharing. 

Where sharing is likely to be repetitive, or occur frequently, there should be an information sharing agreement in place. The Health system, the Police, and the local authority are signed up to overarching information sharing agreements that set out core information sharing principles that signatories are signed up to or have agreed.  

These are known as Tier 1 agreements. For specific ongoing information sharing activities with these partners, there should be a Tier 2 agreement in place, which focus only on the detailed particulars of that activity.

To check if information sharing agreements are already in existence, contact your organisation’s Information Governance team.

Useful practitioner resources