2.1a Section 30 – Local Offer

Local authorities must publish information about the services and provision they expect to be available for children and young people with SEN and disabilities. The Local Offer needs to cover special educational, health care and social care provision, other educational provision, training provision, provision to assist in preparing children and young people for adulthood and independent living (such as finding employment or obtaining accommodation), arrangements for children and young people to travel to schools or post-16 education and providers of relevant Early Years education.

The Special Educational Needs and Disability (England) Regulations 2014 set out detailed requirements over the content of offers and how local authorities are to involve parents, children and young people in their development and review.

2.1b Section 30 – Local Offer

Every local authority has a published Local Offer and is keeping it under review.

Local area inspections have shown that some areas, such as West Sussex and Wiltshire, have strong Local Offers, that are well designed and contain a lot of useful information. Inspections have, however, also shown that more needs to be done to improve some other Local Offers, particularly in terms of local families knowing about it.

We expect the quality of Local Offers and their use by families to improve over time; particularly as a result of the accountability provisions built into the legislation (i.e. the need for co-production).

We believe strongly that the Local Offer is far more than just a directory of local services and provision. We continue to encourage local authorities to use the Local Offer as a way of informing their decisions over future commissioning of provision.

2.2a Section 32 – Advice and information

Local authorities must make arrangements for advice and information about SEND to be provided for children, young people and the parents of children in its area with those needs; and to make the services provided known to those people, schools, colleges and others they consider appropriate.

This section replaced and extended section 332A of the Education Act 1996, under which local authorities’ parent partnership services provided information and advice to parents of children with SEN. The new provisions include both children and young people with SEN and also disabled children, their parents and disabled young people. (The groups shown in italics were not covered by the previous arrangements.)

2.2b Section 32 – Advice and information

Children and young people with SEND and their parents in every local authority area have access to information, advice and support (set out in chapter 2 of the SEND Code of Practice). We have supported the development of these services through the Information, Advice and Support Service Network (IASSN), working closely with the CDC. We also provided funding for Independent Supporters from 2014-18 to complement these statutory services during the transition period.

Ofsted/CQC inspectors have found evidence of strong IAS services in a number of areas[1].

We have recently contracted with Contact and the CDC to deliver a new Information, Advice and Support (IAS) Programme designed to improve standards across all IAS Services – including through a dedicated Freephone service. This builds on the success of the Independent Supporters Programme.

2.3a Section 41 – Independent special schools and special post-16 institutions: approval

In addition to reaffirming existing rights around parents of children with a Statement of SEN/plan being able to request their child attend a specific maintained school, the Act provided non-maintained special schools to be within the scope of this preference. It also provided, in section 41, for independent special schools and specialist colleges to be included if they applied to the Secretary of State for Education and were approved for that purpose. Once on the section 41 list institutions have a duty to admit a child or young person whose EHC plan names them as the appropriate place.

2.3b Section 41 – Independent special schools and special post-16 institutions: approval

The section 41 list was first published by the Secretary of State for Education in September 2014 and has been updated at least annually since[2]. To date, 161 independent special schools and 78 special post-16 institutions have successfully applied to be on the list.

2.4a Section 49 – personal budgets and direct payments

A local authority must prepare a personal budget for a child or young person with an EHC plan if asked to do so by the child’s parents or the young person. A personal budget is an amount of money identified as available by a local authority to secure provision that is specified or proposed to be specified in an EHC plan where the parent or young person is involved in securing that provision. Personal budgets can take the form of direct payments; notional budgets; third party arrangements; or a combination of the above. Most of the detailed requirements in respect of personal budgets are in The Special Educational Needs (Personal Budgets) Regulations 2014.

2.4b Section 49 – personal budgets and direct payments

To ensure that families are aware of all the options available to them locally, local authorities must provide information on personal budgets as part of their Local Offer. This should include a policy on personal budgets that sets out a description of the services across education, health and social care that currently lend themselves to the use of personal budgets; how that funding will be made available; and clear and simple statements of eligibility criteria and the decision-making processes.

We funded KIDS to produce Making it Personal 2, a suite of resources[3] to inform professionals and parents about personal budgets.

There is also guidance aimed at local authorities, schools, colleges and other educational settings available on the nasen SEND Gateway[4].

The latest DfE data[5] shows that there were 11,661 personal budgets in place for EHC plans issued or reviewed during the 2017 calendar year; an increase from 6,442 in the 2016 calendar year[6].

2.5a Sections 52-56 – Mediation

Under the 1996 Act (as amended in 2001) local authorities had been required to make local arrangements for the voluntary resolution of disputes (between parents and local authorities and parents and schools) delivered by people independent of the local authority. These provisions were carried into the 2014 Act and expanded to make them available to young people as well as parents and to be available in a wider range of circumstances.

The Act also introduced new provisions requiring local authorities to establish mediation arrangements. Mediation under the 2014 Act only applies at the time parents and young people are thinking of appealing to the Tribunal and only about the matters which can be appealed. Parents and young people have to contact a mediator before proceeding to Tribunal (except in the case of appeals solely relating to the naming of a particular institution).

2.5b Sections 52-56 – Mediation

We introduced a requirement to seek advice on mediation because we believe that it is much better and quicker for disagreements to be resolved at a local level without needing to turn to a formal Tribunal process. There is evidence that mediation is successful – there were 2,497[7] mediation cases held during the 2017 calendar year and 1,867 (75%) of these were not followed by appeals to Tribunal in 2017.

Preventing disagreements and resolving them as soon as they arise make the system less adversarial for families. Following a review of disagreement resolution (see below), we have:

• supported the introduction of SEND mediation standards and a voluntary system of accreditation to increase the confidence in, and quality of, mediation; and
• provided training for local areas and Information, Advice and Support services on the law.

We will be publishing guides on the routes of complaint for young people and for parents.

2.6a Section 58 – Appeals and claims by children: pilot schemes

The Secretary of State for Education has a power by order to make pilot schemes enabling children to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND) about relevant EHC decisions or disability discrimination claims under the Equality Act 2010. Section 58 will be automatically repealed by February 2019.

2.6b Section 58 – Appeals and claims by children: pilot schemes

In December 2017 we confirmed our decision not to use the powers in the Act to pilot a right for children under 16 to appeal themselves to the Tribunal at the current time.

Although giving children under 16 the right to appeal would strengthen their voice, there is limited evidence of demand from families or children in England; and in Wales, where the right was established in 2015, there has not been a single appeal. We will keep the issue under consideration, including monitoring the position in the devolved administrations and how the current system is working for young people aged 16 and over.

2.7a Sections 70-76 – Detained persons

These are new statutory requirements relating to those under 19 with SEN detained in youth custody.

Local authorities and health bodies must arrange the provision in an EHC plan and ‘home’ local authorities retain responsibility for a child or young person when they enter custody, while in custody and for arrangements on release.

The detailed requirements are in The Special Educational Needs and Disability (Detained Persons) Regulations 2015. Guidance on carrying them out is in the SEND Code of Practice.

2.7b Sections 70-76 – Detained persons

The DfE sponsored a two year project, led by the charity Achievement for All, working in close partnership with the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers (AYM) and researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University, to support implementation of these reforms; building on an earlier project by the CDC.

Quality Mark and Quality Lead standards were defined to support young people with SEN who end up in the youth justice system. Over 50 area partnerships were benchmarked and supported to bring professionals from different disciplines to work more effectively together, meeting the needs of young people with complex vulnerabilities.

2.8a Section 79 – Review of resolution of disagreements

This provision required the Secretary of State for Education and the Lord Chancellor to carry out a review of how effectively disagreements about the exercise of functions under Part 3 of the Act are being resolved and report to Parliament by April 2017.

2.8b Section 79 – Review of resolution of disagreements

To inform the report to Parliament, we commissioned the Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research (CEDAR) at the University of Warwick to carry out an independent review of the whole system of disagreement resolution. At the same time, we piloted a single route of redress for parents, carers and young people, giving the Tribunal extended powers to make non-binding recommendations on health and social care aspects of EHC plans.

In the report to Parliament in March 2017[8] we set out actions to provide additional support and guidance to local authorities and families and committed to a two year national trial of the expansion of the Tribunal powers. This will give a more holistic view of the needs of the child or young person, encourage joint working and bring about positive benefits to families. Following an evaluation we will make a decision as to whether to continue.