Announced on 4 June and launched on Friday 5 June 2026, the government’s new early years data-sharing pilot will test whether better links between health visiting, education and childcare records can help children reach school with the expected basic skills in place. The first pathfinder areas are Leeds City Council, the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and councils across the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Education say parents will also be asked where fragmented services slowed access to help. (gov.uk)
The policy case is straightforward. Department for Education statistics show that 67.7% of children in England reached a good level of development in 2024/25, leaving roughly 32% below that measure at the point they enter school. For children eligible for free school meals, the figure was 51.3%, meaning just under half were not meeting the benchmark. The government’s school-readiness milestone is to raise the national rate to 75% by 2028. (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)
According to the GOV.UK announcement, the practical problem is that records and observations can still sit in separate systems or on paper, so professionals do not always see the same picture at the same time. A health visitor may spot one issue and an education practitioner another, yet support can still arrive late if those observations are not joined up. Leeds City Council made the same point in its contribution to the launch, saying families are often left to repeat a child’s story and connect information themselves when moving between professionals. (gov.uk)
This is not yet a national roll-out of child-level data sharing. The press release describes an exploratory project that will examine options for safe connection of data, and says any more detailed information would be shared securely and ethically only with the services that need it. Ministers say the longer-term aim is to make it easier for registered professionals, including GPs, education practitioners and speech and language therapists, to see a fuller picture of a child’s development where that is lawful and justified. At present, GOV.UK says the National Data Library only holds non-personal, aggregated datasets, so any move beyond that would involve a clear change in governance as well as technology. (gov.uk)
The initiative also sits inside a wider digital government programme. GOV.UK identifies the work as the Early Years Kickstarter, one of a series of Government Digital Service projects linked to the National Data Library. DSIT’s January 2026 progress update says these projects are intended to test high-value use cases, capture lessons and inform later decisions on public-sector data sharing. This suggests the scheme remains in controlled policy development rather than a settled operating model. (gov.uk)
The legal context is moving at the same time. On 2 June 2026, the Department for Education opened consultation on statutory guidance for the information sharing duty introduced by the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act; the consultation closes on 14 July and the duty is due to apply from September 2026. Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026 separately states that data protection law does not block appropriate information sharing, and says lawful bases may include legal obligation or public task, with extra conditions needed for special category data. The same guidance says high-risk processing should be backed by a data protection impact assessment and that families should be told what is being shared, where it is safe to do so. (gov.uk)
For delivery agencies, the attraction is speed and continuity. If child development information can be aligned safely, health visitors, early years settings and local authority teams may be able to refer families earlier and avoid repeated assessment or repeated requests for the same information. For parents, the practical gain would be simpler access to speech and language support, toilet training advice and other early help before reception begins. Bridget Phillipson presented the work as an extension of Best Start Family Hubs, while Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram argued that faster, safer information sharing could reduce the risk of children being missed between services. (gov.uk)
The project is being positioned as a complement to the government’s wider early years offer, not a substitute for it. The launch notice says up to 1,000 Best Start Family Hubs are due to be operating by 2028, backed by almost £1 billion, while separate government material puts current investment for hubs and linked healthy babies and SEND support at more than £900 million over three years. GOV.UK is also inviting further local authorities, parents and childcare providers to register interest, which suggests ministers are using the initial areas as pathfinders before deciding whether a broader model is workable. (gov.uk)