Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of provision of respite care for children with severe and multiple additional behavioural needs; and what steps his Department is taking to improve the level provision of such care.

Since 2011, local authorities have been under a duty to provide a range of short breaks services, sometimes known as respite care, which can provide support for children with a range of needs including severe and behavioural needs. Local authorities are required to publish a local short breaks services statement showing what services are available, how they are responding to the needs of local parents and carers, and how they can be accessed, including any eligibility criteria.

While responsibility for funding short breaks rests with local authorities, the Department for Education has offered support and to help make surelocal authorities meet their statutory requirements; has funded innovative grants that promote best practice for delivering services; and continues to consider how we can best support local authorities who are working to deliver sustainable short breaks provision.

The government is able to oversee how much local authorities have planned to spend on short breaks provision through authorities’ annual section 251 returns. This information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/section-251-2016-to-2017.

Departmental surveys such as the Children’s Services Omnibus also gather information on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) services provided by local authorities, including short breaks.

There are also opportunities through the new Ofsted and Care Quality Commission SEND inspections framework for local areas to consider how well they are providing for the education, health and care needs of those with SEND, including their need for short breaks services. A thematic ‘one year on’ report published by the two inspectorates in October 2017 found that “children and young people who have SEND and their families typically had good access to high-quality short breaks” (full publication here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/652694/local_area_SEND_inspections_one__year__on.pdf).