Indeed. We agree that such provision plays a valuable role in supporting children and young people with SEN. This is reflected in Clause 30 and the associated regulations. The noble Baroness said she recognised that the provisions were mentioned in the draft code of practice in terms of the information to be published, and she pushed for further details about that.
Schedule 1 of the regulations made under Clause 30 will require local authorities, as the noble Baroness noted, to publish information about the services they expect to be available for children and young people with special educational needs for whom they are responsible. I can assure her that this specifically includes provision by institutions approved under Clause 41 both within and outside its area. This is also made clear in chapter 5 of the draft code of practice. I hope that this provides the necessary clarification that she asked me for. Parents can request that independent and non-maintained schools be included in the list produced under Clause 41, and we make that clear in chapter 7 of the draft code at page 111. I hope that that reassures her on that point.
I turn to Amendment 106 from my noble friend Lady Sharp, which was also spoken to by my noble friend Lady Brinton. Schools play a vital part in making special educational provision and have a clear responsibility for ensuring that children with and without education, health and care plans receive appropriate and effective support. It is right that information relating to training, the sharing of good practice and local authority support is made available. We believe that this detail is best placed in the regulations and the SEN code of practice. We believe that Clause 30, the associated regulations and the guidance in the SEN code of practice provide a common framework for the local offer that is sufficiently robust and clear.
Schedule 1 of the local offer regulations states that local offers must include information on:
“the special educational provision secured by the local authority in mainstream schools, mainstream post-16 institutions, pupil referral units and alternative provision Academies”,
and,
“how expertise in supporting children and young people with special educational needs is secured for teaching staff and others working with those children and young people”.
The draft SEN code of practice elaborates on this by making clear that the local offer should include information on,
“local arrangements for collaboration between institutions to support those with SEN (for example, cluster or partnership working between post-16 institutions or shared services between schools)”.
Noble Lords will know that there is a lot more detail in the code of practice, and I hope it will be of assistance to them.
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My noble friend flagged up a point about admissions. As she noted, there is currently a requirement under the Special Educational Needs (Provision of Information by Local Education Authorities) (England) Regulations 2001. It was introduced at a time when the local authority was the admissions authority for the vast majority of schools in its area. That position has changed dramatically, with most schools now being their own admissions authority. We understand that noble Lords want admissions to operate fairly. The Government share that aim and a number of measures are in place to support it. They are set out in Section 6.8 of the draft SEN code of practice and include the requirements of the school admissions code and the Equality Act 2010. I hope that my noble friend will take that back to my other noble friend, look carefully at it and be reassured on that point.
We discussed the safeguards in place in respect of children and young people with EHC plans in our debate on Amendment 157B, and we will discuss this further later in the Bill.
Turning to Amendment 106A tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, we agree that the information schools provide under Clause 65 is key and should be included in the local offer. We have ensured consistency between the SEN information regulations and the local offer regulations. This will enable children, young people and parents to see from the local offer what provision is expected to be available in schools in the local authority’s area under those headings and to seek more detail in the information published by individual schools under those headings.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, also tabled Amendment 106B. In our debate on the first group of amendments to clauses in Part 3, we discussed how the Government’s reforms would support disabled children and young people. In that debate, noble Lords made a passionate case for extending the scope of the Bill to include all disabled children and young people. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, made clear the bearing of the Equality Act in this area. I am very grateful to her for emphasising that, as we did when we were discussing this area, and I am happy again to emphasise the overriding importance of the Equality Act. The Minister promised that we would reflect further on the other points raised in those debates and we would therefore like to consider Amendment 106B in that context. I assure the noble Baroness that we will consider further
the other points that she made about information for disabled children. I hope we will come back to that and she will be content.
Turning to Amendment 108A from my noble friend Lord Addington, we recognise the importance of specialist support, assistive technology and accessible publications in enabling children and young people to learn and in helping them to take assessments and examinations. As I mentioned earlier, and as my noble friend knows only too well, I have particular sympathy in this regard. Over the years, my noble friend has passed me information which my son has found useful.
Provision has been made in Schedule 1 to the draft regulations made under Clause 30 to require local authorities to set out information on the arrangements in place for: securing the provision and equipment required by children and young people with special educational needs; the provision made by schools and colleges for identifying the particular needs of children and young people; adapting the curriculum and the learning environment for children and young people with special educational needs; how facilities that are available can be accessed by children and young people with SEN; and making additional learning support available to children and young people with special educational needs.
We feel that we have addressed the issues my noble friend is talking about but I see him looking at me intently, as ever. He and those advising him might like to look at the draft SEN code of practice. Chapter 5 deals with the guidance on the local offer and chapter 6 refers to the responsibilities of education settings for identifying and supporting children and young people with SEN. If they feel that there are problems with the text and are concerned that there should be improvements, we would obviously welcome that input.