1. The Local Offer: an overview
Julie Jennings
RNIB

2. Legal requirements Key component of the C+F Act:
‘local authorities must publish a local offer, setting out in one place information about provision they expect to be available across education, health and social care for children and young people in their area who have SEN or are disabled, including those who do not have EHCPs’ (COP 4.1)
Supported by the general duties on agencies to co-operate and integrate services

3. Two key purposes
To provide clear, comprehensive, accessible and up-to-date information about the available provision and how to access it
To make provision responsive to local needs and aspirations by directly involving CYP with SEND and their parents, and service providers in its development and review (COP 4.2)

4. Engagement of CYPF LAs must
- review their local offer in consultation with CYPF with SEND, and
- publish comments from CYPF about the local offer and the action they intend to take in response to these comments
‘Its success depends as much upon full engagement with CYPF as on the information it contains’ (COP 4.3)

5. Supporting guidance on SI
NatSIP
- Including SI services in the local offer
- Creating Confidence in local services
- Schools’ SEN Information report
NDCS
RNIB
Sense

6. NatSIP Evaluation: impact of the local offer
to assess the level of awareness of parents of the availability and purpose of the LO
to review the information available to parent carers and YP with SI in published LOs
to measure the early impact of the NatSIP guidance
to inform the future work for NatSIP around the LO

7. Key learning - parents
Parents are not aware of the existence of the LO
LO information is not easily located by parents on LA websites
Information needs to be accessible to all families, not just those with a computer
All families do not just need to be technically able to access the LO, they need to be aware of its existence and understand the benefits
Ensuring the LO remains up to date is crucial for them to be useful

8. Key learning – SI services
LOs are still a resource in development
Quality of general information is variable
SI provision is low priority

9. There’s hope......
‘the development of the MSI local offer was organic and moved forward over a period of time. The key starting point was to find out the parent and child’s experience and the improvements they identified. The developments have been supported by a commitment from professionals from a wide range of organizations to work together to improve practice and delivery. It is important that the local offer is not static......’