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Chapter IDG52970

Document Cited authorities 2 Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date19 March 2016
Record NumberIDG52970
CourtHM Revenue & Customs

Social Service departments exist within all Local Authorities. One of their duties is to protect and promote the well-being of children. Where a child is thought to be at risk of significant harm, Social Services may make a request for information from HMRC.

Social Services request information relating to child benefit or guardian’s allowance

Paragraph 10A of Schedule 5 Tax Credit Act 2002 allows HMRC to disclose information relating to Child Benefit or Guardian’s Allowance (but not information relating to a person’s income) to Social Services where that information is needed to fulfil its statutory responsibilities under Part 5 of the Children Act 1989 relating to the welfare of a child. Such enquiries will generally be made where the Local Authority suspects that a child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm.

Local Authorities should only request information from HMRC in a very small number of cases, ie where there are urgent concerns about a child or family who is missing and all other possible sources of information eg schools, health services etc have been exhausted.

Only the Child Benefit Office (CBO) may disclose this information

Offices other than CBO are not permitted to disclose this information to Social Services (see below).

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Procedure to follow

The arrangement that HMRC has with Social Services is that CBO take responsibility for all disclosures to them of information which relates to the welfare of a child. This is most likely to be information relating to child benefit.

If you receive a request from a Social Services department for child benefit information you should pass the request to CBO Customer Relations Unit and provide the requestor with contact details for the Unit (see IDG80100).

If you receive a request for child benefit information and are unsure how to proceed, please contact CBO Customer Relations Unit

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