New consultation on safeguarding children guidance

Updating the Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance is central to the government’s plans to transform children’s social care.

The Government has recently published a consultation on changes to the Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance. Readers will know that this is the multi-agency guidance for the system that provides help, support and protection for children and their families. It gives practitioners clarity about what is required of them individually and how they need to work in partnership with each other to deliver effective services. It was last revised in 2018 with a limited factual update in 2020.

The revisions to the statutory guidance are based on the first phase of the government’s policy paper, Stable Homes, Built on Love published in February 2023. Its aim is to implement a 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 planned changes in Working Together are set out across four key themes:

• A shared endeavour
• Multi-agency safeguarding arrangements
• Help and support for children and their families
• Decisive multi-agency child protection

You can respond to the consultation by completing the online survey by 6 September when it closes.