Section 30 in Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 defines and prescribes the content of a “Local Offer”. A local authority in England must publish information about the education and training, social care and health provision, for children and young people who have special educational needs or a disability, that it expects to be available in its area (or in some circumstances outside), whether or not it will be making that provision itself. Schedule 2 to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014, SI 2014/1530, specify what information must be included in the Local Offer. Mostyn J has considered these provisions in R (L & P) v Warwickshire County Council (2015) EWHC 203 (Admin). He observed, at para 48, that Schedule 2 provides for a “very extensive range of information” to be published in the Local Offer, and referred to the “vast number” of people and bodies each local authority must consult before publishing its Local Offer and to the “huge range of information that must be referenced”.
Having referred to the statutory guidance, Mostyn J stated:
“51. Although the prescriptions are extremely extensive it is important to understand that the requirement is no more than to publish information about what services are expected to be available. Section 30 of the 2014 Act incorporates a publication obligation, no more, no less.”
At para 54, he said:
“…it must be very clearly understood what the purpose of the consultation is. It is about what appears in the Local Offer, which is a compendium of information. I remind myself of the words of section 30. The local authority has a duty to publish information about certain provision it expects to be available.”
At para 57, Mostyn J reiterated that the statutory consultation is about what the Local Offer should say about services to be provided, not about what services should be provided. He dismissed the challenge to the fairness of the consultation. He emphasized (para 59) that the Local Offer by its nature will always be subject to continuous updating; and, at para 77, approved the following submissions on behalf of the County Council:
(i) The development and publication of the Local Offer is, as the legislative framework envisages and the implementation guidance makes clear, intended to be an iterative process, subject to consultation and to be done in accordance with the new spirit of “co-production”. To update the website with further information on the Local Offer and to continue to do so as the Offer is refined and further developed is entirely lawful.
(ii) It is obviously not arguably unlawful for information to be published on the Council’s website by way of a link through to a partner’s website, for example with respect to the information on healthcare provision and SEN provision in schools.