Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the implementation of the SEN code of practice.

The Department for Education has invested heavily in practical and financial support for the implementation of the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) reforms. We have also put in place a range of measures to gather, and act upon, information and intelligence on the effectiveness of implementation. This includes:

• a team of DfE advisers to offer local areas one-to-one support;

• termly surveys of local authorities to assess their progress, the results of which are published;

• providing resources to enable Contact a Family to conduct a parallel survey of Parent Carer Forums, the results of which are also published; and

• funding a number of voluntary organisations, and working closely with our strategic partner, the Council for Disabled Children, to gather intelligence from, and offer support to, local areas.

From next year, all local areas will be subject to inspection of their SEND arrangements by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission. Ofsted will consult on the proposed SEND inspection framework in the autumn.

Progress in the first year has been encouraging. For example, all local areas have a local offer in place and a plan to ensure smooth transition to the new system. Results from the first 781 respondents to a family survey on Independent Supporters indicate that:

• over 90% found the Independent Support service very or extremely useful;

• 85% would like further support on EHC planning in the future;

• nearly 75% would recommend IS service;

• over 96% said support was available when they needed it.

This is, however, a major reform programme and we continue to monitor progress.

The Children and Families Act 2014 requires all local authorities to publish a local offer of the services and support available to children and young people in their area with special educational needs and disabilities.

The local offer should include specialist provision such as special schools, non-maintained special schools, independent special schools and specialist post-16 institutions which are either within the local area or where the local authority would expect to make placements. In addition, there is a statutory requirement to refer to the list of independent special schools and independent specialist colleges approved by the Secretary of State under Section 41 of the 2014 Act. This can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/section-41-secretary-of-state-approved-list. All local authorities have included this information in their local offer.