New Disclosure and Safeguarding Mechanism for At-Risk Children

We propose a statutory safeguarding framework that facilitates proactive information sharing where a child is at risk due to a parent or caregiver’s known history, even when current laws may not trigger disclosure.

• Introduce a Child Risk Disclosure Scheme (CRDS) that operates similarly to Clare’s and Sarah’s Laws but is focused on the broader risk history of caregivers. • Require statutory services (police, social care, health) to disclose relevant past history to the child’s parent or legal guardian when a risk is identified. • Establish multi-agency response protocols, particularly where child contact, custody, or unsupervised access is being considered. • Empower professionals to raise safeguarding alerts and initiate family court safeguarding interventions where known risks exist, even if not currently under active investigation.

Keeping children safe is a priority for this government, and this is why we are delivering the most significant overhaul of children’s social care in a generation. We deeply sympathise with calls to more effectively safeguard children and we recognise that fostering a culture of proactive information sharing amongst safeguarding professionals is critical to the early identification of need and risk, hence the facilitation of better support provision to prevent escalation.

Through our landmark Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we have set out to improve multi-agency information sharing, introduce a responsive family help system, and sharpen the child protection system. These reforms, taken together, are intended to better safeguard children, and stop them from falling through the cracks.

It is only when safeguarding partners have a fuller understanding of a child that they can effectively assess risk and take the most appropriate action. Rightly, the proposed Child Risk Disclosure Scheme highlights the importance of empowering and encouraging safeguarding practitioners to proactively share information relevant to a safeguarding concern, including where information relates to a risk posed by another person in a child’s life. Whilst the Government is not minded to introduce the elements of a Child Risk Disclosure Scheme requiring police to disclose information to parents and guardians, proposals to strengthen multi agency responses and earlier safeguarding help are already included in the package of reforms we are taking forward.