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Government consults on changes to Working Together to Safeguard Children

The Government has this week launched a consultation on planned changes to Working Together to Safeguard Children, the multi-agency statutory guidance that sets out expectations for the system that provides help, support and protection for children and their families.

The consultation follows the DfE’s publication in February this year of Stable Homes, Built on Love, its plan to transform children’s social care.

The DfE said: “Updating Working Together is central to delivering on the first phase of this transformation journey, implementing strengthened multi-agency working across the whole system of help, support and protection for children and their families, re-balancing the system towards help at an early point, and ensuring strong, effective and consistent child protection practice.”

The Department said the proposed changes would strengthen the guidance in five key areas:

  • “A shared endeavour” introduces expectations for effective multi-agency working and practice principles for working with parents and carers.
  • Multi-Agency Safeguarding Arrangements “clarifies roles and responsibilities, introduces a partnership chair and deepens accountability and transparency”.
  • Help and support for children and their families includes stronger expectations on Early Help and family networks, clarifies permissions on working with children under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and emphasises support for disabled children.
  • Decisive multi-agency child protection introduces new national multi-agency child protection standards for practitioners and approaches to harm outside the home.
  • Learning from serious child safeguarding incidents.

The last time Working Together to Safeguard Children was revised was in 2018. There was a limited factual update in 2020.

More information on the consultation and accompanying documents can be found here. It closes on 6 September 2023.

The DfE said it would publish, in the winter of 2023,  a document showing what respondents to the consultation have said. It will then review the Working Together guidance every year “to make sure it’s accurate and to see what extra changes we may need to make”.

The Department also issued this week a consultation on updated guidance for safeguarding practitioners on information sharing.