The SEND Local Offer is the information every local authority in England must by law publish about the support it expects to be available locally for children and young people aged 0-25 with SEN or disabilities.
What the Local Offer legally is
SEND means special educational needs and disabilities. The duty sits in section 30 of the Children and Families Act 2014, which requires every council to publish, in one place, information about the provision it expects to be available across education, health and social care for children and young people in its area who have SEN or a disability. That covers the whole 0-to-25 age range, and it deliberately includes children and young people who do not have, and have never been assessed for, an EHC plan. No diagnosis is needed to use it. The SEND Code of Practice sets out two purposes: to give clear, comprehensive and up-to-date information, and to make local provision more responsive by involving families and providers in how it is built and reviewed.
The qualifier most pages miss: it is an expectation, not a guarantee
The wording in the statute is exact and load-bearing. The Local Offer sets out provision the council expects to be available, not provision any individual child is entitled to. It is an information duty, not a promise of a named service. A listing in the Local Offer does not, on its own, give a child a legal right to that service. Entitlement to specific, named provision flows from an EHC plan or another legal duty, not from the Local Offer itself. For an officer drafting or defending a Local Offer page, that distinction is the one to get right: describe what is generally available in the area, and avoid wording that reads as an individual promise.
The other live duty: consult, publish, respond, review
The Local Offer is a co-production duty, not just a website. Part 4 of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 (regulations 53 to 56 and Schedule 2) prescribes the minimum content and sets out the ongoing obligations. The council must consult children, young people and parents on the Offer, publish the comments it receives, and publish its own response, including any action it intends to take. Section 30 then requires it to keep the Local Offer under review and revise it from time to time. So the Offer is never finished: it carries a rolling consult-and-respond cycle, which is the part many council pages and explainers leave out.
Where the wider SEND reforms sit
The Schools White Paper of February 2026 and the proposed reforms to EHC planning restructure parts of the SEND system, with no changes expected before September 2030. They do not repeal the section 30 Local Offer duty, which remains current law. State the duty as it stands now; you can note that the wider system is under reform without implying the Local Offer itself is changing.
Where the law comes from
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.