House of Commons – March 17, 2025 – c.113.1.20

New Clause 20 - 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 (Corporate parenting responsibilities)(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— (a) requiring or authorising the processing of information if the processing would contravene the data protection legislation (but in determining whether the processing would do so, take the duty under subsection (1) into account);

(b) 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;

“processing” and “the data protection legislation” have the meaning given by the Data Protection Act 2018 (see section 3(4) and (9) of that Act);

“relevant authority”, “looked-after children” and “relevant young people” have the same meaning as in section (Corporate parenting responsibilities). (6) In section 1 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, after subsection (4) insert— “(5) See also section (Corporate parenting duty: collaborative working) of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2025, which requires local authorities in England to collaborate with other bodies in performing their respective corporate parenting duties.”” —(Stephen Morgan.)