255 - Information Sharing Is Changing: What Early Years Needs to Know

This week's podcast is about information sharing because that's changing.

And what I want to do is talk to you about what we need to know in early years.

So thinking about something that every DSL, every nursing manager, early years leader, preschool leader needs to know about because from September the 30th, 2026, there is a new statutory information sharing duty.

And I think this guidance probably tackles something that I've seen repeatedly when auditing settings and talking to practitioners.

And that's about the nervousness about sharing information.

Can I actually tell them this? Do I need the parents permission? Is this serious enough? What about GDPR? And perhaps the biggest one, which I hear all of the time is I don't think it reaches the threshold yet, which, you know, I'm sure we hear that all of the time when we contact our safeguarding partners, but anyhow.

This new guidance is trying to make something very clear.

We shouldn't be waiting for a situation to become serious before we start putting the pieces of safeguarding together, that jigsaw piece of that child's life, which comes hand in hand with the new statutory framework that came out in September where we talked about what they've taken out the word significant harm and just had harm.

So What's actually changed? The new guidance is called Information Sharing Duty, Statutory Guidance for Safeguarding Organisations and Their Practitioners.

And it explains the new information duty under the Section 16 LA of the Children's Act 2004, introduced through the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act, just in case you needed to know.

And this duty applies to scenarios arising from 30th of September 2026.

And there's one sentence in this guidance that I really want early years practitioners to understand.

There does not have to be a particular statutory threshold met before relevant information can be shared.

I'm going to say it again.

There does not have to be a particular statutory threshold met before relevant information can be shared.

You don't have to wait until something reaches a child protection threshold before information sharing becomes relevant.

That's the difference in this information sharing duty.

And the guidance specifically talks about early help, prevention and unmet need.

And I think that is incredibly, incredibly important, really important, because safeguarding isn't just what happens when we're worried about A child, when a child is experiencing significant harm, safeguarding is also noticing the small things, those low level concerns.

We should be sharing that information.

So for an example, imagine you've got a three-year-old in your setting and over the last couple of weeks, they've become quieter, they're unusually hungry in the morning.

Mum who normally brings them has started arriving late.

Child has occasionally been wearing the same clothes.

None of those things individually necessarily tell us what's happening.

And this is where practitioners sometimes think it's not enough to refer.