Training materials for teachers of learners with severe, profound and complex learning difficulties

A local authority’s Local Offer is a statutory resource (online and on paper) that must set out in one place information about provision they expect to be available across education, health and social care for all children/young people in and outside their area who have special educational needs/disabilities including those who do not have Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans.
(0-25 SEND Code of Practice, 2015, section 4.32)

 

In summary, it includes information on:

• Services across education, health and social care and from birth to 25;
• How to access specialist support;

• How decisions are made, and who makes them, including eligibility criteria for accessing services where appropriate;
• How to complain or appeal.

As well as public services, the Local Offer includes private, voluntary and community sector services. It is intended to evolve over time in response to local need and service-user feedback both on a continuing basis and through an annual review.

 

Local authorities must solicit and publish comments received and how they will respond to them, including developing action plans in consultation with parents and children/young people.

'The Local Offer must be developed by local authorities and their health partners, together with children and young people with SEN and disability and their families. The Local Offer should build on the JSNA [Joint Strategic Needs Assessment] and the analysis of local SEN and disability needs. Other organisations [eg schools and other educational providers]… have a duty to co-operate with the local authority in drawing up the Local Offer.'

 

Schools will also be interested in the health provision provided available to children/young people with special educational needs and disability – click here. However, the Local Offer is for all children/young people who have special educational needs or disabilities, not just those with complex needs who have Education, Health and Care plans.

 

'As well as providing information about the services that the local authority expects to be available the Local Offer should also perform an important function as a tool to improve provision by setting out [information about] how services will meet local need and achieve the outcomes set out by the joint commissioning arrangements.'

 

(Council for Disabled Children, 2014)

The Local Offer must also meet the following requirements:

• The local authority must involve parents and children/young people in developing and reviewing the Local Offer, and cooperate with service providers.
• The Local Offer should be promoted to children/young people with special educational needs and disability and their families, and the information should be easy to understand and jargon free.
• The Local Offer must cover available provision across education, health and social care from the ages of 0 to 25, with details of how these services can be accessed and any admission or eligibility criteria. It must also include clear details of where to go for information, advice and support, as well as how to make complaints about provision or appeal against decisions.
• The Local Offer must be clear about how commissioning decisions and decisions about services are made and who is accountable and responsible for them.

(Council for Disabled Children, 2014)

Schools are under a duty to publish (both on their website and on paper) an SEN Information Report, which gives more detailed information than the Local Offer about their provision for children/young people with special educational needs/disability.

 

The information in the report should be updated annually with any changes to the information occurring during the year being updated as soon as possible.

 

The people with legal responsibility for the SEN Information Report are the governing bodies of maintained schools and maintained nursery schools and the proprietors of academy schools.

 

As part of the SEN Information Report, they must publish information on their websites about the implementation of the governing body’s or the proprietor’s policy for pupils with special educational needs/disabilities.

 

Click here to find out the information that needs to be in the School SEN Information Report compared with the Local Offer.