What the Local Offer is
A Local Offer must set out the SEND provision a council expects for 0-25s in and outside its area: education, health, care, transport, preparation for adulthood, EHC assessment, personal budgets and complaints routes. The duty comes from section 30 of the Children and Families Act 2014: a council in England has to publish, in one place, the support it expects to be available for children and young people who have special educational needs or a disability, whether the council provides that support directly or expects others, such as schools, health services and social care, to make it. The Local Offer covers provision the council expects others to make, not only what it runs itself.
The statutory content
Regulation 53 of the SEND Regulations 2014 fixes the content. It requires the council to include the 23 categories of information set out in Schedule 2 to those regulations. Grouped for a reader, those categories cover:
- Education provision. The special educational provision available in and outside the area and across settings, how SEN is identified, how the curriculum and accessibility are adapted, and how emotional and social development is supported.
- Health and social care. The health provision and the social care provision available, including support for the transition to adult services.
- Transport. Travel arrangements to and from schools and post-16 institutions.
- Preparation for adulthood. Post-16 and apprenticeship or training provision, and support for independent living, employment and higher education, including disabled students' allowances.
- Routes into the system. How to ask for an EHC needs assessment, personal budgets, the criteria for accessing provision, and information, advice and support services.
- Resolving disagreements. How to complain, and the appeals to the SEND Tribunal, mediation and disagreement resolution that families can use.
The duty most lists leave out
The Local Offer is not just a published directory. Under section 30(5) to (7) of the Children and Families Act 2014, and Regulations 55 and 56, the council must consult children, young people and parents when it prepares and reviews the Local Offer. It must then publish the comments it receives and the action it intends to take in response. That second limb makes the Local Offer a participation-and-accountability tool, not only an information page, and it is the part a compliant Local Offer most often misses.
The SEND Code of Practice (January 2015, Chapter 4) sets out what good looks like: the Local Offer should be collaborative, accessible, comprehensive, transparent and jargon-free, and it should be kept up to date and reviewed regularly. The Department for Education's thematic reviews of the SEND Local Offer confirm that content and accessibility are actively scrutinised, so a Local Offer that is out of date or hard to navigate is a live compliance risk.
Where the law comes from
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.