The Children and Families Act (2014) placed a requirement on all local authorities to publish a Local Offer with effect from 1 September 2014.  The Local Offer provides information on services across Education, Health and Social Care for children and young people who are aged 0 -25 years and have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).  The Local Offer includes local provision and provision outside of the area that is likely to be used including regional and national specialist provision.

The purpose of the Local Offer is to provide clear, comprehensive and accessible information about the available services and how families can access them.  The aim is to make provision more responsive to local needs and aspirations by directly involving disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs, their parents and service providers in its development and review.

There is a statutory requirement for the local authority to publish an annual report relating to the feedback received through the Local Offer.  The report must be published by 31^st August in each calendar year.

The report of the Strategic Director of Children’s Services (Document “X”) on the development and publication of Bradford’s Local Offer is submitted.

Recommended -

The Committee is asked to note the contents of this report.

                                                                                    (Jenni Leary - 01274 439538)

The Children and Families Act (2014) placed a requirement on all local authorities to publish a Local Offer with effect from 1 September 2014.  The Local Offer provided information on services across Education, Health and Social Care for children and young people who were aged 0 -25 years and had special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).  The Local Offer included local provision and provision outside of the area that was likely to be used including regional and national specialist provision.

The purpose of the Local Offer was to provide clear, comprehensive and accessible information about the available services and how families could access them.  The aim was to make provision more responsive to local needs and aspirations by directly involving disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs, their parents and service providers in its development and review.

There was a statutory requirement for the local authority to publish an annual report relating to the feedback received through the Local Offer.  The report had to be published by 31^st August in each calendar year.

The report of the Strategic Director of Children’s Services (Document “X”) on the development and publication of Bradford’s Local Offer was submitted.

Responses were given to member questions as follows:

·         The Local Offer web site provided the facility to translate.  The Local offer was also available in other formats.  Feedback would be received from families on their requirements regarding accessibility of the information.

·         The ethnic breakdown of people accessing the Local Offer was not recorded but this could be taken up with the Local Offer Officer.

·         Work was undertaken with families that were harder to reach through Incommunities, Children’s Centres and Community Groups to share information on the Local Offer.

·         There was a legal requirement on all schools to publish information on their Local Offer annually.  There was a direct link from the Local Offer web site to individual schools and schools had been asked to put a link from their web sites to the Local Offer web site.

·         Education, which was the top most used category had doubled from 2014-15 to 2015-16.  However it was not possible to conclude whether this had resulted from an increase in assessments or other factors that were creating pressures for special school places.

·         Briefings took place with all school services and health professionals on the requirements of the Children and Families Act (2014) therefore a number of people in schools would be aware of the Local Offer.

·         Clarification would be sought regarding providing information for families on respite services.

A member commended the Local Offer on it’s comprehensive nature and noted the need to update it’s content and style in the light of feedback from users, in order to maintain it’s relevance.

Resolved -

(1)          That the contents of Document “X” be welcomed and noted.

(2)          That a link to the local offer be emailed to members of the Committee and the Governors Service be asked to send the link to governors and use their contacts to promote the Local Offer to all communities.

ACTION:        Strategic Director of Children’s Services

                                                                        (Jenni Leary - 01274 439538)