The statutory duty
The Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on every local authority to publish a SEND Local Offer, providing information about services and support available for children and young people in their area who have special educational needs and/or disabilities.
The Local Offer has two key purposes:
- To provide accessible and upto-date information about the available provision and how to access it.
- To make provision more responsive to local needs and aspirations by directly involving children, young people, parents, carers and service providers in its development and review.
Local authorities must publish comments about their Local Offer received from or on behalf of children with SEN or disabilities and their parents and young people with SEN or disabilities.
Local authorities are not expected to publish responses to every comment individually. They are also not expected to publish abusive comments.