Collaborative

4.2 The Local Offer has two key purposes:
- To provide clear, comprehensive, accessible and up-to-date information about the available provision and how to access it, and
- To make provision more responsive to local needs and aspirations by directly involving disabled children and those with SEN and their parents, and disabled young people and those with SEN, and service providers in its development and review

Strategy · Co-production · Co-operation · Aspirations · Up to date

4.3 The Local Offer should not simply be a directory of existing services. Its success depends as much upon full engagement with children, young people and their parents as on the information it contains. The process of developing the Local Offer will help local authorities and their health partners to improve provision.

Co-production · Change · Strategy · Health

This could, for example, be provision in a further education college in a neighbouring area
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4.4 The Local Offer must include provision in the local authority’s area. It must also include provision outside the local area that the local authority expects is likely to be used by children and young people with SEN for whom they are responsible and disabled children and young people.

Regional · Co-operation

This could, for example, be support services for children and young people with particular types of SEN that are provided jointly by local authorities.

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4.4 The Local Offer must include provision in the local authority’s area. It must also include provision outside the local area that the local authority expects is likely to be used by children and young people with SEN for whom they are responsible and disabled children and young people.

Regional · Co-operation

It should include relevant regional and national specialist provision, such as provision for children and young people with low-incidence and more complex SEN.
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4.4 The Local Offer must include provision in the local authority’s area. It must also include provision outside the local area that the local authority expects is likely to be used by children and young people with SEN for whom they are responsible and disabled children and young people.

Regional · Co-operation

4.6 The Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 provide a common framework for the Local Offer. They specify the requirements that all local authorities must meet in developing, publishing and reviewing their Local Offer, and cover:
• the information to be included
• how the Local Offer is to be published
• who is to be consulted about the Local Offer
• how children with SEN or disabilities and their parents and young people with SEN or disabilities will be involved in the preparation and review of the Local Offer, and
• the publication of comments on the Local Offer and the local authority’s response, including any action it intends to take in relation to those comments

SEND Regulations 2014 · Publish · Co-production · Up to date · Strategy · Transparent

4.7 The Local Offer should be:
• collaborative: local authorities must involve parents, children and young people in developing and reviewing the Local Offer. They must also co-operate with those providing services

Co-production · Strategy · Health

4.8 Local authorities must involve children with SEN or disabilities and their parents and young people with SEN or disabilities in:
• planning the content of the Local Offer
• deciding how to publish the Local Offer
• reviewing the Local Offer, including by enabling them to make comments about it

Co-production · Strategy · Parent carers · Young people · Up to date · Transparent

4.9 Local authorities should do this [4.8] in a way which ensures that children, young people and parents feel they have participated fully in the process and have a sense of co- ownership. This is often referred to as ‘co-production’. Local authorities should take steps to ensure that their arrangements for involving children, young people and parents include a broadly representative group of the children with SEN or disabilities and their parents and young people with SEN or disabilities in their area.
Parent Carer Forums, young people’s forums and other local groups are useful ways to engage families.

Co-production · Forums · Parent carers · Young people

4.10 Local authorities should publicise in their Local Offer the ways in which they will involve children, young people and parents in developing and reviewing it.

Publish · Strategy · Co-production · Parent carers · Up to date

Local authorities should ensure that they provide support that enables children, young people and parents to contribute to decision-making at this strategic level and the Local Offer should include details of this support, which should include Parent Carer Forums and local voluntary organisations.

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4.10 Local authorities should publicise in their Local Offer the ways in which they will involve children, young people and parents in developing and reviewing it.

Publish · Strategy · Co-production · Parent carers · Up to date

4.11 Local authorities must engage young people directly in developing and reviewing the Local Offer and should consider setting up a forum, or a range of forums, to do so. Local authorities should make every effort to engage a cross-section of young people with a range of SEN and disabilities, in a variety of settings and circumstances and at different ages within the 16–25 age range. Local authorities should make every effort to establish the issues on which young people most want to be engaged. They should also consider using a variety of methods to engage young people. These could include surveys and social media or young people’s forums, and making existing consultation groups, such as a local youth council, accessible to young people with SEN or disabilities. Young people should also have opportunities to be engaged independently of their parents.

Co-production · Forums · Young people · Up to date

They should also consider using a variety of methods to engage young people. These could include surveys and social media or young people’s forums, and making existing consultation groups, such as a local youth council, accessible to young people with SEN or disabilities. Young people should also have opportunities to be engaged independently of their parents.

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4.11 Local authorities must engage young people directly in developing and reviewing the Local Offer and should consider setting up a forum, or a range of forums, to do so. Local authorities should make every effort to engage a cross-section of young people with a range of SEN and disabilities, in a variety of settings and circumstances and at different ages within the 16–25 age range. Local authorities should make every effort to establish the issues on which young people most want to be engaged.

Co-production · Forums · Young people · Up to date

4.12 When organising participation events for young people, local authorities should endeavour to ensure full accessibility by considering:
• timing: holding events when young people are most likely to be free and not when they are likely to be in education (unless arrangements have been made with their education providers)
• transport: explaining to young people how to travel to an event, with clear instructions, maps and, particularly in rural areas, details of a taxi service which is accessible to those with disabilities
• physical accessibility: for example, access for a number of wheelchair users
• accessibility of content: providing materials in different formats and tailored to meet different cognitive abilities and reading skills and supporting different communication needs, avoiding jargon and acronyms wherever possible and where this is not possible, explaining terms used
• age appropriateness: keeping membership of young people’s forums under review as the participants get older, and bearing in mind the very different stages that young people will be at from the age of 16 to 25
Whatever the means of consultation and engagement, local authorities should let participants know the outcome of discussions so that they will know what will happen as a result of their contribution.

Young people · Forums · Co-production · Strategy

4.13 Effective parent participation can lead to a better fit between families’ needs and the services provided, higher satisfaction with services, reduced costs (as long-term benefits emerge), better value for money and better relationships between those providing services and those using them. Local authorities and parents should work together to establish the aims of parent participation, to mark progress and build trust. To enable effective parental participation, local authorities should consider in particular the timing of events and meetings – for example, organising them during the school day while children are at school and ensuring that parents have enough notice to allow them to organise childcare.

Forums · Co-production · Parent carers

4.14 Local authorities and their partner bodies and agencies must cooperate with each other in the development and review of the Local Offer. This is essential so that the Local Offer provides a comprehensive, transparent and accessible picture of the range of services available.

Co-operation · Up to date · Health · Transparent

4.15 The most relevant local partners who are required to cooperate with the local authority in relation to the Local Offer include:
• the governing bodies of schools that the local authority maintains
• the proprietors of academies and free schools in the local authority’s area
• the proprietors of non-maintained special schools that are in the local authority’s area or provide education or training for children and young people in the local authority’s area
• the governing bodies of further education colleges and sixth form colleges that are in the local authority’s area or are attended or likely to be attended by young people from their area
• the management committees of pupil referral units that are in the local authority’s area or are attended or likely to be attended by young people from their area
• the proprietors of independent specialist colleges and independent schools specially organised to make provision for children and young people with SEN which have been included on the list of institutions approved by the Secretary of State for the purpose of enabling parents and young people to request that they are named on an EHC plan and are in the local authority’s area or are attended or likely to be attended by children and young people in their area
• any other person (other than a school or college) that makes special educational provision for children or young people for whom the local authority is responsible, including providers of relevant early education
• NHS England and any relevant health bodies including:
- clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) whose areas coincide with or fall within the local authority’s area or which have a duty under section 3 of the National Health Service Act 2006 to arrange for the provision of services for any children or young people for whom the local authority is responsible
- an NHS Trust or NHS Foundation Trust which provides services in the local authority’s area or for children and young people for whom the authority is responsible, or
- a Local Health Board with functions in relation to children and young people for whom the local authority is responsible

Specialist schools · Governers · Co-production · EHC Plan · CCGs · NHS · Propietors · Schools · Health

4.17 The local authority must also ensure that all its officers co-operate with each other in respect of the Local Offer. This must include those whose roles relate to social services or who will contribute to helping young people make a successful transition to adulthood – for example those working in housing and economic regeneration.

Adulthood · Accommodation · Housing · Training and apprenticeships · Social care · Co-operation · Strategy

4.20 Local authorities should link reviews of education, health and social care provision to the development and review of their Local Offer and the action they intend to take in response to comments. This will help to identify gaps in provision and ensure that the Local Offer is responsive to the needs of local children and young people and their families. At a strategic level local authorities should share what they have learned from the comments they receive with local Health and Wellbeing Boards where appropriate, to help inform the development of Health and Wellbeing Strategies and the future provision of services for children and young people with or without EHC plans.

Change · Strategy · Health · Education · Social care · Co-operation · Up to date · Feedback · Transparent

4.23 It is up to local authorities to decide on the format for publishing comments but they should consult children and young people with SEN or disabilities and parents and representative organisations such as Parent Carer Forums and local organisations providing information, advice and support to parents, children and young people about this, including the local authority’s Information, Advice and Support Service. They should make clear how they have sought comments about the Local Offer.

Forums · Publish · Co-operation · Information and advice · SENDIASS · Transparent

4.26 Local authorities must publish their response to comments received within the Local Offer and this must include details of the action they intend to take. They should consult children and young people with SEN or disabilities and the parents of children with SEN or disabilities in relation to the action they intend to take.

Co-production · Feedback · Transparent

4.29 Local authorities must include information about all the areas specified in the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014. They may wish to include wider information, taking account of their discussions with children with SEN or disabilities and their parents and young people with SEN or disabilities.

Up to date · SEND Regulations 2014 · Co-production

4.61 Clear, comprehensive and accessible information should be published about the support available to children and young people with SEN and disabled children and young people and the opportunities to participate in strategic decision-making. Local authorities and CCGs must ensure that they publicise the availability of information and advice and opportunities to participate in strategic decision-making. Early years providers, schools, colleges, and other relevant services should tell parents and young people about the availability of local impartial information, advice and support. For young people this should include access to information, advice and support on preparing for adulthood, such as advice and support on securing paid employment and/or meaningful occupation, independent living and finding accommodation, health and social care and participating actively in their local communities.

Information and advice · Strategy · Co-production · Health