There is no single national PPN. Many police forces use a "public protection notice", and others use different names for the same idea. Devon and Cornwall Police, for example, say a PPN should be submitted whenever an officer identifies a person, adult or child, with a safeguarding concern. Each one is graded high, medium or low risk, reviewed by a central safeguarding team and, where appropriate, shared with social care, health and education partners. In Devon, the education service passes relevant PPNs to the child's school within 24 hours.
For a school, a PPN may arrive as a notification to the DSL, often linked to a domestic abuse incident. That overlaps with Operation Encompass, which since November 2025 has been a legal duty on police forces to tell a child's school about domestic abuse incidents. In some areas both arrive through the same route.
Working Together 2026 says the police hold important information about children who may be suffering significant harm and should share it where necessary to protect children, applying the local threshold document when deciding whether to refer (paragraph 286).
Don't confuse a PPN with police protection, the power under section 46 of the Children Act 1989 to remove a child to safety in an emergency (paragraph 287). Check your local partnership's procedures for how PPNs work in your area.