Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department has given to local authorities on informing young people regarding disability and special educational needs.

Part Three of the Children and Families Act 2014, imposes a range of duties on local authorities in England in relation to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in their areas, or for whom they are otherwise responsible. These include:

• The identification of children and young people with SEND
• The integration of educational provision and training provision with health care provision and social care provision
• The joint commissioning of education, health and care provision for children and young people with SEND
• Cooperation with their local partners over the authorities’ functions under the 2014 Act in relation to SEND, with reciprocal duties on their partners
• Publishing and then keeping under review SEND Local Offers, which set out the provision they expect to be available across education, health and social care for children and young people with SEND
• Making arrangements for children and young people and their parents to be provided with advice and information about matters relating to the special educational needs or disability of the children or young people concerned

The 2014 Act requires my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, to issue a code of practice giving guidance to local authorities, and others, about the exercise of their functions under Part Three of the Act, to which they must have regard. This statutory guidance is the ‘Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years’ (2015), which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25.

Local authorities must publish a summary of comments at least annually. All local areas are subject to robust SEND inspections, and Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have just commenced a strengthened local inspection framework, which does include judgements about the Local Offer where appropriate. Where a local area’s Local Offer is identified as a significant weakness by Ofsted/CQC, the department provides intervention and support to secure improvement.