Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026

25 Corporate parenting duty: collaborative working

(1) Relevant authorities and local authorities in England must, so far as reasonably practicable, collaborate with each other when performing their corporate parenting duty where they consider that doing so would safeguard or promote the wellbeing of looked-after children or relevant young people.

(2) In subsection (1), “corporate parenting duty” means—

(a) in the case of a relevant authority, the duty under section 23(1);

(b) in the case of a local authority in England, the duty under section 1(1) of the Children and Social Work Act 2017.

(3) Collaboration under subsection (1) may in particular include—

(a) sharing information;

(b) providing advice or assistance;

(c) co-ordinating activities (and seeking to prevent unnecessary duplication).

(4) Subsection (1) is not to be read as requiring or authorising a disclosure of information which is prohibited by any of Parts 1 to 7 or Chapter 1 of Part 9 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.

(5) In this section—

• “local authority in England” has the same meaning as in section 1 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017;

• “relevant authority”, “looked-after children” and “relevant young people” have the same meaning as in section 23.

(6) In section 1 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, after subsection (4) insert—

“(5) See also section 25 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, which requires local authorities in England to collaborate with other bodies in performing their respective corporate parenting duties.”