Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help improve coordination between public services and local authorities in cases involving safeguarding concerns for children under Special Guardianship Orders.

The multi-agency statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ outlines how sharing of information between organisations and agencies within a multi-agency system is essential to improve outcomes for children and their families, including those with Special Guardianship Orders.

As part of the roll-out of the Families First Partnership Programme, the department is ensuring stronger multi-agency approaches to child protection and safeguarding for all children, including those under Special Guardianship Orders. This includes legislating for new multi-agency child protection teams and a strengthened role for education in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.

£555 million will be available for 2026/27 and 2027/28 to local authorities to roll out these reforms across the country. This in addition to the £500 million made available for 2025/26, which will also continue for each year of the spending review period.

‘Working together to safeguard children’ was updated in 2023 to place additional focus on strengthening multi-agency working across the whole system of help, support and protection.