How do local authorities commission SEND provision?

The duty in one line

Local authorities cannot commission SEND provision alone: the law requires joint commissioning arrangements with their Integrated Care Board, covering education, health and care for 0-to-25s with SEN or a disability. This is the single point most summaries miss. They stop at ‘work in partnership’; the duty is more specific than that, and it is set out in statute, not guidance.

The statutory route: section 26

Section 26 of the Children and Families Act 2014 requires a council and its partner commissioning bodies — in practice the Integrated Care Board, and NHS England where relevant — to make joint commissioning arrangements about the education, health and care provision to be secured for children and young people with SEN for whom the council is responsible, and for those with a disability in its area. The parties must have regard to those arrangements and keep them under review. It is not a delegable, council-only function.

What the joint arrangements must cover

The arrangements are not a statement of intent. Section 26 names the things they must, in particular, settle:

what education, health and care provision is reasonably required by the local SEND population;
which provision is to be secured, and by whom — council, ICB, or both;
how advice and information are provided, and how complaints and disputes are handled;
arrangements for securing EHC needs assessments, for securing the provision specified in EHC plans, and for agreeing personal budgets.

Those last three are the items that make the duty bite at the level of the individual child, and they must be reflected in the Local Offer.

The separate duty: section 27 sufficiency

Joint commissioning sits alongside a second, distinct obligation that is easy to fold in by mistake. Under section 27, a council must keep under review the educational, training and social care provision for its 0-to-25 SEND population — in and outside its area — and assess whether it is sufficient to meet their needs. In doing so it must consult children, young people and parents, schools and academies, post-16 and early-years providers, and have regard to the local health and wellbeing strategy. Section 26 asks who commissions what, together; section 27 asks is there enough of it.

The currency correction commissioners need

The SEND Code of Practice (2015) still refers to Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) as the council’s health-commissioning partner. CCGs were abolished on 1 July 2022 and replaced by Integrated Care Boards, which inherited the partner-commissioning duty. A commissioning paper, JSNA refresh or Area SEND inspection response that still names CCGs reads as out of date — the partner is now the ICB.

Accountability and where reform is heading

These duties are inspected: a joint Ofsted and Care Quality Commission Area SEND inspection looks directly at whether commissioning is genuinely joint and whether provision is sufficient. The current direction of travel does not remove either duty. The Schools White Paper of February 2026, with statutory change proposed through the Education for All Bill, sets out a new Individual Support Plan duty and EHC plans narrowed towards the most complex needs by 2035, backed by an additional £7bn for SEND by 2028–29. These are proposals, with no structural change before September 2030; sections 26 and 27 remain in force today.

See also what a SEND sufficiency strategy is and what SEND place planning involves.