4.28 Supporting Children at Risk from People in Prison and Supervised by the Probation Service

1. Prison Service

The Prison Service will make a child safeguarding enquiry with children’s social care for all newly sentenced prisoners, and will identify prisoners who present an ongoing risk to children from within custody. Prisons will also decide on the level of contact, if any, they will allow between a prisoner and a child based on a child contact risk assessment. A prisoner’s contact with a child will be prohibited or restricted where necessary.

When a child safeguarding enquiry is received from a prison, children’s social care should:

• review the information provided by the Prison Service and record it as required;
• respond to the child safeguarding enquiry and share with the Prison Service any concerns about the prisoner, including whether there are any concerns about them having any contact with a child;
• contribute to the prisons’ child contact risk assessment where a child is known to children’s social care, or has previously been known, by providing a report on the child’s best interests and verifying the child’s identity. Where the child is not known to children’s social care, they should still provide a view on child contact and should advise the prison to complete a child safeguarding referral if one is required.

2. Probation Service

The Probation Service will:

• share information with children’s social care about supervised individuals who have contact with children or who pose a known risk to children;
• request information by making child safeguarding enquiries.

Information exchange between probation and children’s social care help both agencies develop a better understanding of the children and families they work with and ensures risk assessments are accurate and well informed.

Under the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 sharing an offender’s personal information must be lawful and fair and must comply with Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 and in particular the data protection principles.

See also Information Sharing and Data Protection chapters

Sharing of information for the purposes of law enforcement and keeping children and young people safe meets one of the requirements for lawful processing under the Data Protection Act 2018, as the data sharing is authorised by law (under section 325(3) and (4) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003) (or section 14 of the Offender Management Act 2007). It is therefore not necessary for Prison and Probation Service staff to obtain consent from the offender under the Data Protection Act 2018.

For information exchange to be effective, children’s social care should:

• explore arrangements with their local Probation Delivery Unit who have resources to support the timely provision of information in response to child safeguarding enquiries, including same day responses, where delay may negatively impact on a child. This may involve sharing information relating to a child, family, or offender who children’s social care may currently or historically know;
• reflect the voice of the child in information shared with the Probation Service, where appropriate;
• be prepared to offer the Probation Service a view on decisions in the child’s best interest.