On 15th December 2023 the Department for Education (DfE) launched the statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguarding Children 2023. This edition replaces the 2018 edition.  

This statutory guidance sets out what organisations and agencies who have functions relating to children must and should do to help, protect and promote the welfare of children and young people under the age of 18 in England. 

This new edition of Working Together is central to delivering on the strategy set out in Stable Homes, Built on Love (2023). 

This briefing highlights the key updates that have been introduced. 

The new guidance is set out in 5 chapters and key changes include:

Chapter 1 – A Shared Responsibility - this chapter introduces principles for working with parents and carers, sets expectations for multi-agency working that apply to all individuals, agencies and organisations.

Chapter 2 – Multi-agency safeguarding arrangements – this chapter strengthens how multi-agency partners work together and with relevant agencies.  The chapter clarifies roles and responsibilities of safeguarding partners and introduced the partnership chair role.  There is a much stronger emphasis on the role of education and being part of strategic discussions.

Chapter 3 – Providing Help, support and protection - This section is split into three sections: Early help, Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and Child protection. The chapter details, the role of education and childcare settings, Children’s social care assessments , lead practitioners, supporting disabled children and their carers, harm outside the home and national multi-agency practice standards.

Chapter 4 – Organisational responsibilities – covers factual changes to align with legislation and guidance.

Chapter 5 – learning from serious child safeguarding incidents – clarifies the expectation for the local authorities to keep in touch with care leavers over the age of 21 and the non-mandatory reporting of care leavers deaths up to the age of 25. 

You can access the Working Together to Safeguarding Children 2023 here

The NSPCC have developed a summary of the key provisions introduced in working together to safeguard children 2023 which can be found here 

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (the Panel) is responsible for commissioning and overseeing national and local reviews of serious child safeguarding cases to improve learning, professional practice and outcomes for children in England.

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel – Annual Report 2022/23, which is  fourth annual report covers the Panel’s work from January 2022 to March 2023.

It captures evidence and learning from:

• Serious incident notifications (SINs) that progressed to a rapid review;
• data from rapid reviews;
• data from local child safeguarding practice reviews (LCSPRs);
• thematic reports and letters from the Panel to safeguarding partnerships, used to assess the quality of rapid reviews

The Panel identified four current ‘critical issues’ which can impact the safeguarding and child protection system’s ability to help and protect children:

• Services’ capacity to assess, help and protect the increased numbers of children suffering mental and emotional health challenges, particularly since the COVID19 pandemic.
• The suitability and sufficiency of placements and quality of care provided for children looked after by local authorities.
• Challenges in workforce recruitment and retention, particularly in children’s social care and health visiting.
• Significant pressure on preventative and early help support services due to resources being reduced over several years.

The Panel also found that safeguarding partners and the government need to make sure that the impact of different policy changes is clear in day-to-day practice.  Practitioners need the time and training to integrate changes into practice.

Learning from Practice

In the panel annual report in 2021 they highlighted 6 practice themes to make a difference in reducing serious harm and preventing child deaths caused by abuse and neglect. The panel report that these themes were not new then, and they continue to see them emerging in rapid reviews.

Below are the six key practice themes identified from a sample of 40 Local children safeguarding practice reviews (LCSPRs), from a total of 144 completed between January 2022 and March 2023.

For each theme, the Panel highlighted examples of good practice reflected in LCSPRs.

• Theme 1: Effective leadership and culture supporting critical thinking and professional challenge
• Theme 2: Giving central consideration to racial, ethnic and cultural identity and impact on the lived experience of children and families
• Theme 3: The importance of a whole family approach to risk assessment and support
• Theme 4: Recognising and responding to the vulnerability of babies
• Theme 5: Domestic abuse and harm to children – working across services
• Theme 6: Keeping a focus on risks outside the family

The panel also identified a further six additional emerging themes:

• Parenting capacity and children with disabilities and health needs.
• Children with complex mental health needs.
• Parental mental health and parenting capacity
• Children not in school
• Young carers.
• Working with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.

The Panel also considered three cross-cutting themes that emerged from their national and thematic reviews. These themes reflect on ‘what is going on’ in the system and what needs to be done to improve the safety and protection of children.  The themes are:

• Knowing what life is like for children
• Information sharing and seeking
• Working across agency boundaries

The report concludes with a series of reflective questions to help safeguarding partnerships consider how best to embed learning and drive improvements in their local safeguarding systems.