Working Together 2026

The updating of the Children’s Social Care: National Framework (National Framework) and Working Together to Safeguard Children, statutory guidance, provides clarity on how local authorities, safeguarding partners, relevant agencies, and others can work towards the government’s vision for supporting children, young people, and families. They underpin the system reforms, including the Families First Partnership programme (FFP), which aims to rebalance the system of support away from crisis intervention and towards prevention.

Summary of Changes

The Department for Education has also updated the Children’s Social Care National Framework - Statutory guidance

The Supporting Local Areas to Embed Working Together to Safeguard Children and the National Framework Guidance  sets out how local areas can improve
outcomes by focusing on:
• Increasing consistency of practice across teams and agencies
• Strengthening multi-agency arrangements and integrated working
• Ensuring systems, processes and decision-making align with the National Framework
and Working Together Statutory Guidance
• Using evidence and data, including insights from practice guides and the children’s
social care dashboard, to evaluate impact and drive improvement

We are currently reviewing the changes to the statutory guidance to understand their impact on the procedures, roles, and responsibilities.

We expect the statutory guidance to undergo a further update once the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is passed.