Multi Agency Safeguarding Arrangements

Working Together 2026 sets out the following requirements for the Multi Agency Safeguarding Arrangements (MASA). They must include:

• Arrangements for the safeguarding partners to work together to identify and respond to the needs of children in the area
• Arrangements for commissioning and publishing local child safeguarding practice reviews
• Arrangements for independent scrutiny of the effectiveness of the arrangements.

These arrangements and all the information relating to them will be published on the Barnet Safeguarding Children’s Partnership website and are detailed henceforth within this document.

 These arrangements will be subject to review and will be updated at least annually. You can find our MASA here 

Please note we will publish our reviswed 2026/27 MASA following the structural reform to the local ICB and the production of the new Family Service's Family First programme which will see the introduction of Multi Agency Child Protection Teams 

Working Together 2026 (WT26) is not an incremental update to the 2023 guidance. It represents a system‑reframing of safeguarding children, aligning statutory safeguarding with the Children’s Social Care reform programme, the National Framework, and evidence from national reviews and serious incidents.

The guidance:

• Reasserts safeguarding as a shared system responsibility, not just a statutory compliance function.
• Shifts expectations from activity and process to impact, outcomes and lived experience.
• Tightens accountability of safeguarding partners, particularly around leadership grip, data use, and independent scrutiny.

Introduces Family Help as a foundational structural reform rather than a discretionary model. Please find a helpful visual guide to the updates here: