Information sharing: The most misunderstood safeguarding duty

Following on from my previous blog about fragmented risk in safeguarding, I find that the question on whether this information can be shared comes up regularly when professionals talk about improving multi-agency working.

Safeguarding decisions sit alongside legal responsibilities, professional standards, and the need to maintain trust with the people we support.

Yet in my experience, the biggest barrier to effective safeguarding information sharing is rarely the law itself. More often, there is uncertainty about how the law should be applied in practice.

Safeguarding professionals understand the importance of protecting confidential information. They also understand the responsibility to act when someone may be at risk. The challenge arises in the space between those two duties.

In conversations across agencies, I often hear questions such as:

• Are we allowed to share this information?
• Do we have the right legal basis?
• Could this be seen as a breach of data protection?

These are good questions. But fear and confusion can lead to hesitation at exactly the moment when clarity is most needed.

Frameworks such as data protection law and the Caldicott Principles were never designed to prevent safeguarding professionals from protecting people. In fact, the opposite is true.

The principles exist to help professionals share information responsibly, proportionately, and with clear justification. They provide structure for decision making rather than barriers to action.

One principle in particular is often overlooked: the duty to share information where it is necessary to safeguard individuals – consent of an individual is not needed. This reflects an important reality. Protecting confidentiality and protecting people are not competing objectives. They are both part of the same professional responsibility and judgement.

In practice, effective information sharing depends less on changing the rules and more on improving confidence in how they are applied. When safeguarding professionals understand the principles that govern responsible data sharing, decisions become easier to make and defend.

This is why documentation, transparency, and clear rationale are so important, so they become part of a defensible safeguarding process rather than a source of anxiety. What governance frameworks can do is provide the confidence that decisions made for the right reasons, using the right principles, are legitimate and defensible and grounded in professional judgement,

In my own role, a big part of the work involves helping safeguarding organisations think through these decisions, supporting them to consider the purpose of sharing, and what information is necessary and proportional.

Uncertainty about data sharing doesn’t just exist at an individual level. It can also exist between organisations.

Different agencies may interpret guidance differently. Thresholds for sharing may vary and systems and processes may not always align. Over time, this can create hesitancy across the wider safeguarding environment.

One of the most valuable things safeguarding partners can do is work together to create a shared understanding of information sharing responsibilities. When agencies have clarity about how information will be handled and why, collaboration becomes far easier.

Ultimately, safeguarding depends on professionals being empowered to act on insights at the right time. That requires two things: strong protections around confidentiality, and clear confidence that information can be shared when safeguarding demands it.

When those two elements are in balance, information governance becomes an enabler rather than an obstacle. Because the real challenge in safeguarding is rarely whether the law allows us to share information. More often, it is whether professionals feel confident enough to do so.

I’d be interested to hear how others approach this balance in practice. What helps professionals feel confident when making safeguarding information-sharing decisions in your organisation? How do you feel the Data (Use and Access) Act will assist safeguarding work and stronger data sharing?