Q&As

Safeguarding Concerns: Duty to Refer to Social Services?

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Produced in partnership with Chris Bryden of 4 King’s Bench Walk
Published on: 11 August 2021

Where a client raises concerns about a serious safeguarding risk to a child, is there a responsibility to make a referral to social services? Is the client’s consent required for a referral to be made? What steps should be taken to ensure a referral is made?

Safeguarding concerns relating to children are sadly a feature of the practises of most solicitors and barristers engaged in family law work. There is an inherent tension between the understandable desire to protect the child particularly where a serious safeguarding risk is identified, and the duty of confidentiality owed to the client. Legal representatives are not social workers, and their professional duties may from time to time conflict with what they perceive to be their moral obligations where information is disclosed by a client that leads to a safeguarding risk.

Solicitors and barristers owe a duty of confidentiality to their clients (paragraph 6.4 of the Code of Conduct for Solicitors) and that duty is unqualified. The duty is to keep the information confidential, not simply to take reasonable

Chris Bryden
Chris Bryden

Barrister, 4 King’s Bench Walk

Chris was called to the Bar in 2003 and since that time has built a busy practice across a range of areas, with an emphasis on Chancery practice. He enjoys a well-deserved reputation for his knowledge and expertise in each area. He appears regularly in the County Court, Family Court and the High Court as well as various specialist Tribunals, and has been involved in cases up to and including the Supreme Court. He regularly is instructed at Appellate level. He has extensive and wide-ranging experience particularly in the areas of wills, probate and inheritance disputes; property including adverse possession, boundary disputes and issues arising out of trusts of land; company and commercial work and financial remedies. Chris is head of the Family Group and head of the Property Team at 4KBW.

Chris is the author of numerous articles in publications such as the New Law Journal, Counsel and Family Law, amongst many other titles, and is the co-author of Social Media in the Workplace: A Handbook (2015, Jordan Publishing).

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Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom
Key definition:
Confidentiality definition
What does Confidentiality mean?

Duty imposed in conduct whereby an individual and firm must keep clients' matters confidential.

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