Policy paper

Information sharing agreement between the inspectorates

Updated 18 July 2025

Applies to England

The following organisations are parties to this agreement:

• The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted)
• The Care Quality Commission (CQC)
• His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS)
• His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMI Probation)
• His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMI Prisons)

Why we share information

1. The inspectorates have committed to share information about our inspection and regulation activity with each other. This agreement explains how we will do that. We share information so that we can:

• assist each other to carry out inspection, enforcement and regulation; this helps us support providers to improve their services
• assist each other to take urgent action when service users may be at risk of harm or of not being well cared for
• respond to queries from members of the public, press or other government departments effectively

Sharing inspection findings

2. The inspectorates will share:

• inspection reports that include in their scope systemic arrangements for the protection or care of children
• thematic reports about the protection or care of children
• reports from inspections carried out jointly by 2 or more of the inspectorates

3. An inspectorate will usually share a report after it has sent the final version to the provider/service and before the report is published (we call this the pre-publication stage).

Sharing concerns about a provider/service

4. While carrying out an inspection, an inspectorate may identify concerns that suggest there are systemic weaknesses in a provider/service that another inspectorate has powers of inspection, enforcement or regulation over. When this happens, the first inspectorate will write to the relevant inspectorate to alert it of these concerns. The first inspectorate will usually send this letter with the corresponding pre-publication report.

5. One inspectorate may write to another before the pre-publication stage if it identifies concerns about any practice that suggests that children, young people or vulnerable adults are, or may be, at risk of significant harm. If the concerns relate to a specific person or people, then the inspectorate will follow its own arrangements for referring the concern to the appropriate authorities that have the power to act and protect the person.

6. The inspectorate that identifies the concerns will usually tell the provider/service that it is sharing its concerns with another inspectorate. Depending on the nature of the concerns, the inspectorates may decide to write to the chair of the local safeguarding partnership and/or the delegated safeguarding partners for a local area. This is so the local partnership can decide what an appropriate multi-agency response to the concerns should be. For more information on multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, see working together to safeguard children.

7. The services we inspect do not always share a geographical boundary. For example, a police force or integrated care board may cover an area with more than 1 local authority or youth offending service. In these circumstances, an inspectorate may collate findings from more than 1 inspection when it writes to another inspectorate to share what it has found. This may happen after some of these reports have been published.

8. Inspectorates will share relevant inspection reports under embargo. These reports should be clearly marked as ‘pre-publication’. When required, correspondence must also be marked with the appropriate Government Security Classification and include instructions on how the recipient(s) should handle the information. Access to these reports will usually be limited to the teams set out below.

• Ofsted: members of the regulation and social care policy and practice teams; the inspection support team for local authority children’s social care inspection; the relevant regional senior His Majesty’s Inspector
• CQC: the children’s services inspection team; the health and justice team; the deputy director in multi-agency operations; senior management in the relevant networks
• HMICFRS: the His Majesty’s Inspector responsible for vulnerability; the senior management team for national child protection inspections
• HMI Probation: the senior management team; the communications team
• HMI Prisons: the senior management team; members of the inspection support team

9. An inspectorate will not publish or share another inspectorate’s report or findings during the pre-publication stage unless 1 of the following criteria is met:

• the information is already lawfully in the public domain
• there is a legal obligation to publish or share (for example, under a court order)
• the originating inspectorate has agreed to this in writing

10. If an inspectorate does share a report or findings, it will tell the inspectorate that created the information when and why it shared the information and who it shared it with.

11. Anyone who asks to see a report after an inspectorate has published it should be directed to the published version. The inspectorate should not send them the pre-publication copy.

Sharing inspection scheduling information

12. The inspectorates may share scheduling information with each other to ensure that we manage the impact of inspection on providers and services.

13. The information we need to share will vary, depending on the inspection programme, the specific inspectorates involved, the providers/services affected and the number of inspections that we need to coordinate. Because inspection schedules are particularly sensitive, we will share only the minimum amount of information needed to coordinate our activities. For example, we may share specific dates for an inspection, or a list of providers/services we plan to inspect in a given year. Access to this information will be restricted to specific named individuals in each inspectorate and will be kept to the minimum number of people required to resolve scheduling conflicts in the relevant inspection programmes. We will share information securely using agreed methods. When an inspectorate shares scheduling information, it will make clear how long this can be kept. The receiving party will delete the information as agreed.

Sharing other information

14. Sometimes, sharing other information will help an inspectorate to carry out its work. For example, the inspectorates that are also registration authorities may share relevant information to support another inspectorate in assessing whether an applicant is suitable to be registered.

15. It is not possible to anticipate all scenarios when we might want to share information. This agreement is a statement of intent. We have agreed to consider the information and process for sharing on a case-by-case basis. Arrangements to share information will comply with any applicable data protection principles, human rights law, duties of confidentiality and any other reasons that are relevant to non-disclosure of information.

16. In some cases, inspectorates may need to share personal data. The relevant inspectorates will identify whether the arrangements to share this information are lawful, fair and transparent before they share the information.

17. The inspectorate that is sharing the information will notify the people that it relates to, if it is realistically possible to do this. It will only do so if this will not undermine the purpose of sharing that information.

Legal basis for sharing information

18. The inspectorates can share information under the following legislation:

Ofsted

Education and Inspections Act 2006, section 149 and schedule 13

CQC

Health and Social Care Act 2008, section 79

HMICFRS

Police Act 1996, section 54(6) and schedule 4a

Police and Justice Act 2006, section 29 (paragraphs 4, 5 and 6)

HMI Probation

For adult services: Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, section 7, as amended by the Offender Management Act 2007, section 12(3)(a)

For youth services: Crime and Disorder Act 1998, section 39

HMI Prisons

Prison Act 1952, section 5A, as amended by the Criminal Justice Act 1982, section 57

Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, section 46(1)

Police and Justice Act 2006, section 28

All inspectorates

Data Protection Act 1998

Data Protection Act 2018

UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), in particular articles 6(1)(e) and 9(2)(G) – these articles set out that information processing is lawful if we need to carry out a task that is in the public interest; further information and guidance is available on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website:

• Article 6: lawful bases of processing
• Article 9: special category data

Freedom of information, data breaches, and retention and destruction arrangements

19. Before receiving information, an inspectorate must make its policy on retention and destruction of information clear to the inspectorate sharing the information.

20. An inspectorate may receive a freedom of information (FOI) request and decide that information it received from another inspectorate falls into the scope of the request. If an inspectorate decides to share significant information, it will contact the relevant inspectorate to ask for its view on whether any exemptions may apply. The inspectorate that received the FOI request will make the final decision on whether to release the information. It should inform the relevant inspectorate of its decision and share its proposed response.

21. If there is a data breach that includes information shared by another inspectorate, that inspectorate should be informed as soon as possible after the breach is detected. This is so the inspectorate can assess what the breach means for its own work. Whenever possible, the inspectorate should also assist in limiting the effect of the breach. Breaches that include personal data may need to be reported to the ICO within 72 hours.

Arrangements to review this agreement

22. The inspectorates will review this agreement every 12 months. They will review it more frequently if relevant issues come up that require them to respond.

23. The inspectorates will inform one another if their internal polices for handling and retaining information change. This is so the potential impact on this agreement can be considered.

24. For questions about an inspectorate’s policy on handling, retention and destruction of information, enquirers should contact the relevant inspectorate.

Signatories to this agreement

This agreement was signed on 30 June 2025 and published on 18 July 2025.

Ofsted

Head of business area:	Jansy Kelly Deputy Director, Social Care and Regulatory Practice
Senior information risk owner (SIRO):	Yvette Stanley National Director, Regulation and Social Care
Inspectorate’s contact details:	Ofsted Piccadilly Gate Store Street Manchester M1 2WD Contact Ofsted 0300 123 1231

Care Quality Commission

Head of business area:	Chris Gendall Director, National Operations
SIRO:	Esther Provins Interim Chief Digital and Data Officer
Deputy SIRO:	Julie Stanborough Director of Data and Insight
Contact details:	Care Quality Commission Citygate Gallowgate Newcastle NE1 4PA childrens-services-inspection@cqc.org.uk 03000 616161

HMI Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services

Head of business area:	David Roome Deputy Director, Joint and National Policing Inspection Portfolio
SIRO:	Michelle Skeer His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
Contact details:	His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services 23 Stephenson Street Birmingham B2 4BH Contact HMI Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services 0300 071 3217

HMI Probation

Head of business area:	Helen Davies Head of Thematic and Joint Inspection
SIRO:	Martin Jones CBE His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation
Inspectorate’s contact details:	His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation First Floor Civil Justice Centre 1 Bridge Street West Manchester M3 3FX Contact HMI Probation 020 3334 3555

HMI Prisons

Head of business area:	Charlie Taylor His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons
SIRO:	Martin Lomas His Majesty’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Prisons
Inspectorate’s contact details:	His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons 3rd Floor 10 South Colonnade Canary Wharf London E14 4PU hmiprisons.enquiries@hmiprisons.gov.uk 020 3681 2770