What is joint commissioning for SEND?

The definition

Joint commissioning is the legal duty for a local authority and its partner integrated care boards to plan and secure education, health and care provision together for children and young people with SEND. The duty sits in section 26 of the Children and Families Act 2014, and the statutory guidance for it is Chapter 3 of the SEND Code of Practice 2015. It applies to all children and young people aged 0 to 25 with special educational needs or disabilities in your area, whether or not they have an EHC plan.

The terminology has changed: ICBs, not CCGs

This is the part most older strategies get wrong. The section 26 duty has not changed, but the partner commissioning body has. Clinical commissioning groups were abolished on 1 July 2022 under the Health and Care Act 2022 and replaced by integrated care boards (ICBs). The same Act amended the Children and Families Act 2014 so that your partner commissioning bodies are now NHS England and the relevant ICBs, not CCGs. If a framework, a strategy document or a template still names "CCGs", it predates the change and needs updating before an inspection picks it up.

What the arrangements must cover

Sections 26(3) and 26(4) set out what your joint commissioning arrangements have to include. They must say:

• the education, health and social care provision reasonably required by children and young people with SEND in your area;
• how that provision will be secured, and who will secure it;
• what advice and information is to be provided about the provision, and by whom;
• how complaints about that provision can be made and dealt with;
• how disputes between you and your partner commissioning bodies are resolved.
• and, under section 26(4), how you secure EHC needs assessments, secure the provision specified in EHC plans, and agree personal budgets under section 49.

These headings are a useful checklist when you draft or audit a joint commissioning framework: every one of them needs a clear, evidenced answer.

How it connects to the wider duties

Joint commissioning does not stand alone. Section 25 of the same Act places a parallel duty on you to promote the integration of education and training provision with health and social care, where that would improve wellbeing or the quality of provision for children and young people with SEND. The two duties run together: section 26 is about planning and securing provision jointly, while section 25 is about joining up how that provision is delivered on the ground.

Where you and an ICB want to put money behind the arrangements, you can pool budgets under a section 75 agreement. See what a section 75 agreement is in SEND for how the pooled-budget mechanism works in practice, and a local authority's wider duties under the Children and Families Act 2014 for where this sits in the statutory picture. You can read the duty in full in section 26 itself.

For an Ofsted and CQC Area SEND inspection, joint commissioning is a graded line of enquiry, so getting the statutory basis and the terminology right is not a drafting nicety: it is part of what you will be inspected on.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.