Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that local authorities fulfil their duty to provide short breaks for disabled children.

The Department’s Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Advisory Team is continuing to offer support and challenge to local authorities to help make sure they meet all of their statutory requirements on SEND, and that quality continues to improve. There are also opportunities through the new Ofsted/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. Eight local area inspections have taken place since May 2016.

Between April 2015 and March 2016, we awarded £250,555 to the Short Breaks Partnership (a consortium made up of Contact a Family, the Council for Disabled Children, Action for Children, and KIDS) to provide information and advice to those involved in designing, commissioning, providing, and taking up short breaks for disabled children. The Department for Education has allocated £200 million funding over the next four years to support innovation and improvement to children’s social work practice. We are currently considering how we can use some of this funding to support local innovative approaches to short breaks for disabled children and their families and for making services more accessible.