Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which local councils have had intervention from the Government to ensure that they provide effective complaints procedures regarding their local offer.
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 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.