EdLaw
Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC): Practice Guidance 4 — Information sharing (2022)
The Scottish Government's practice guidance on sharing information about children and young people under Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC), published 30 September 2022. It is "the fourth Practice Guidance in a series to help and support practitioners and managers embed and implement Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) into their everyday practice" (DECIDING-TO-SHARE.md); the series lists the statutory guidance separately. Reproduced here in full, annexes included.
Applicability to EdTech
- Children's own data rights in Scotland. "In Scotland, under data protection law, children and young people aged 12 or over are presumed to be mature enough to provide their own consent, unless there is any reason to think that they are not" (ANNEXES.md). The charter for children tells under-12s that their parents or carers can ask for their information, and those aged 12 or over that they can ask themselves (ANNEXES.md#charter-commitments-5). The statutory presumption is section 208 of the Data Protection Act 2018: "A person aged 12 or over is to be presumed to be of sufficient age and maturity to have such understanding, unless the contrary is shown" (DPA 2018 CHILDREN-IN-SCOTLAND.md#section-208-3).
- Lawful bases for schools. "For public bodies such as health, education and social work, public task is likely to be the most relevant lawful basis", and it may extend to "third sector and independent organisations" commissioned to provide services (LAWFUL-BASES-AND-CONFIDENTIALITY.md). Special category data needs a Schedule 1 condition of the Data Protection Act 2018 (LAWFUL-BASES-AND-CONFIDENTIALITY.md; the conditions are at DPA 2018 SPECIAL-CATEGORIES-CONDITIONS.md).
- Child protection. The guidance restates the National Guidance for Child Protection: where there is a concern, consent is not required (LAWFUL-BASES-AND-CONFIDENTIALITY.md).
- Transparency. The information sharing charters for children and young people and for parents and carers set out what a service should tell them (ANNEXES.md, ANNEXES.md); section 7 covers transparency (DECIDING-TO-SHARE.md).
Contents
| Document | Covers |
|---|---|
| DECIDING-TO-SHARE.md | Introduction and sections 1–9 — background, key changes and considerations, decision making, rights of the child, transparency, professional judgement, seeking advice |
| LAWFUL-BASES-AND-CONFIDENTIALITY.md | Sections 10–15 — lawful bases, special category and criminal offence data, recording decisions, child protection, confidentiality, Article 8 ECHR and Article 16 UNCRC |
| ASSESSMENT-AND-CHRONOLOGIES.md | Sections 16–17 — sharing information for assessment and planning; chronologies |
| ANNEXES.md | Annexes A–E — glossary, information sharing charters (children and young people; parents and carers), frequently asked questions, Article 8 two-part test |
Licence
The corpus reproduces the guidance from gov.scot. The gov.scot footer (read 2026-10-06 on the publication's pages) says: "All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except for graphic assets and where otherwise stated" and "© Crown Copyright". The text is Crown copyright, which is not an exclusion from copyright, so the label is open-licence.
The Open Government Licence v3.0 (read 2026-10-06) says: "You are free to: copy, publish, distribute and transmit the Information; adapt the Information; exploit the Information commercially and non-commercially". Its conditions: "acknowledge the source of the Information in your product or application by including or linking to any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence", and, where no statement is specified, "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0."; and, under Non-endorsement, the licence "does not grant you any right to use the Information in a way that suggests any official status or that the Information Provider and/or Licensor endorse you or your use of the Information."
Conditions, and how this corpus meets them:
- Acknowledge the source: each section carries a
{.meta}provenance line naming gov.scot, the page and the publication date, and Sources links the publication. Attribution statement: "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0." (licence). - Non-endorsement: the corpus does not claim official status or endorsement by the Scottish Government.
- Changes: the OGL does not require changes to be marked; the selection, layout, dropped link targets and images, and added anchors are described in each document's Meta.
- Exemptions: graphic assets are excluded from the licence and are not reproduced; no personal data, logos or crests are reproduced.
Related
- National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland — the child protection guidance this guidance restates for concerns about harm
- Registration of Independent Schools (Scotland) Regulations 2006 — independent schools' child protection co-ordinator
- Data Protection Act 2018 — the Schedule 1 conditions the guidance points to, and section 208, the age-12 presumption
- UK GDPR — the lawful bases the guidance explains