SEND Law Hub
The local offer is not a nice to have web page. It is a statutory publication. Your local authority is legally required to consult you on it, keep it updated, and respond publicly to comments about it.
The 'Every Child Achieving and Thriving' Education White Paper was published in February 2026, alongside a companion document 'SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First'. These introduce significant proposed changes including Individual Support Plans, a new three-tier support model, and Specialist Provision Packages. The law documented here — the Children and Families Act 2014 and SEND Code of Practice 2015 — remains in full force until legislation and the updated Code are brought into effect. We will update each page as official text is published. See our SEND Reform 2026 page for a full breakdown.
Every local authority must publish a clear, comprehensive account of what support is available for children and young people with SEN in their area. This is the local offer and families have the right to challenge it when it is inadequate.
Section 30, Children and Families Act 2014. Code of Practice § 4.1 to 4.6
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 EHC plans.
The local offer has two key purposes. First, to provide clear, comprehensive, accessible and up to date information about available provision and how to access it. Second, to make provision more responsive to local needs by directly involving disabled children, those with SEN, their parents, and service providers in its development and review.
The local offer should not simply be a directory of existing services. It should include provision the local authority expects to be available, even if currently being commissioned or developed.
Think of the local offer as the menu of support your local authority is legally obliged to publish. It must be accessible and up to date, not a broken PDF from 2018. It applies to all children with SEN, not just those with EHCPs.
Search your local authority name and local offer and read it like a checklist. If services are missing, out of date, or inaccessible, you can comment formally. The local authority must publish your comments and respond publicly under SEND Regulations 2014 Regulation 4.
Section 30, SEND Regulations 2014 Part 4. Code of Practice § 4.17 to 4.36
The local offer must include information about education, health and social care provision, transport, preparing for adulthood, EHC needs assessment, IASS access, and dispute resolution and appeals.
It should be a one stop guide to what is actually available locally and how you get it. If key areas like transport, IASS, or post 16 support are missing, that is a compliance issue, not just a design problem.
Use the legal content list above as a checklist and submit specific comments about what is missing. This creates a public accountability trail and makes it harder for them to pretend it is fine.
SEND Regulations 2014 Regulation 4. Code of Practice § 4.7 to 4.16
Local authorities must involve children and young people with SEN or disabilities, their parents, and providers in preparing and reviewing the local offer. They must publish comments with their response and what action they will take, or why they are not taking action.
Your comments are meant to be public, with the council response next to them. This is powerful and most families never use it.
Submit specific, factual comments and keep a copy. If they do not publish them, chase in writing and cite SEND Regulations 2014 Regulation 4.
Section 27, Children and Families Act 2014
Local authorities must keep SEN education and training provision and social care provision under review and make changes where needed. The local offer must be published and accessible.
Escalation routes include councillors, the parent carer forum, and the local area SEND inspection process. Where necessary you can challenge whether the council is meeting its legal duty to keep provision under review.
Work with your parent carer forum for collective challenges. Collective pressure lands harder than isolated complaints.
'Every Child Achieving and Thriving' — DfE, February 2026
By 2028, the government will introduce National Inclusion Standards — a digital library of high-quality, evidence-based identification tools and provision covering all layers of SEND support. These standards will set out what all children and families should be able to expect from their school and setting.
Once National Inclusion Standards are published, families will be able to compare what their LA's local offer describes against what is nationally defined as appropriate provision. This will strengthen challenges to inadequate local offers significantly.
In the meantime, the existing legal content requirements for local offers under SEND Regulations 2014 remain in force. A local offer that omits transport, IASS, post 16 support, or does not describe provision across all tiers of need is non compliant today, regardless of future standards.
The Children's Commissioner has been given new oversight duties for SEND reform implementation, including regular public reports on gaps and failures across the system. While not a complaints route, these reports will be evidence that families can use when challenging local authorities about inadequate provision or local offer gaps.
Do not wait for National Inclusion Standards. Use the current legal framework to challenge inadequate local offers today. Submit formal comments under SEND Regulations 2014 Regulation 4, involve your parent carer forum, and ask your LA when it plans to update the local offer to reflect the new three-tier support model and Experts at Hand service.
