My Lords, I start by re-emphasising a point that I made in Committee: that accountability is the most important aspect of the local offer, an offer that will be relied on by 1.5 million children with special educational needs. Without strong accountability mechanisms, families will have no way of ensuring that the services they need are available and it is likely that parents will continue to need to push for a statement or an EHC plan to get the support that they and their child need.
Clause 30 states that a local authority must publish comments from children with SEN and their parents about its local offer, as well as the authority’s response to those comments. I am pleased that the Government have strengthened this further with Amendment 33C, requiring local authorities to publish what action they intend to take in response to comments from parents about the local offer. However, I and, indeed, the Special Educational Consortium, which is backing this amendment, have serious concerns that the Government’s Amendment 33C has been placed in the wrong clause and will therefore fail to have its desired effect. Clause 30 refers to the local offer only as a source of information and advice and not to the provision contained in the offer, and therefore the impact of the Government’s very welcome amendment will be felt only in terms of the quality of information and advice. It is Clause 27, relating to reviewing education and care provision, that must be amended. Will the Government therefore commit to moving Amendment 33C to Clause 27 to ensure that improvements to local services are made? If they commit to doing so, this will make a huge difference and go a long way to reducing the battles that parents face. However, I fear that it will still not go far enough in ensuring that local authorities are held to account and that essential improvements to local services are made.
Amendment 25E to Clause 27 would require a local authority, after publishing comments on the local offer, to involve parents and young people in producing an action plan to revise the education and care provision outlined in the local offer, review and report on progress against its action plan and then revise the local offer accordingly, ensuring that local support was sufficient to meet local needs. This would ensure that local
authorities and parents, along with other parties including school governors and children’s centres, worked together at the earliest possible stage to ensure that local provision was the best it could be, bringing about exactly the cultural change that the Government want to see. This is a vital addition to the Bill.
My key question to the Government is: exactly who will check that local authorities do what they promise to do when publishing their response and the actions they intend to take following parents’ comments about the local offer? My amendment would ensure that local authorities not only work with parents and other interested parties to develop an action plan to improve service provision in the local offer but review and report on progress against their action plans. This is exactly the robust accountability measure that will ensure that local support is responsive to local needs—something that the Government have said time and again they wish to see. At the very least, can the Government confirm that the code of practice will include further information relating to the action that local authorities will take in response to parents’ comments about the local offer so that parents and other interested parties, listed in Clause 27(3), will be involved in drawing up an action plan to improve the local offer along with the necessary mechanisms for reviewing and reporting on progress against such an action plan? I beg to move.
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